Michelle Exstrom had a survey question for those attending an education session at NCSL’s Legislative Summit on Tuesday. “Stand up if your state has a teacher shortage,” she encouraged. Mass standing ensued. Exstrom, director of...

Since 2014, NCSL, with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, has been helping statewide afterschool networks collect, analyze and package afterschool and summer program data through a competitive grant opportunity.

The year-old American Rescue Plan provided nearly $123 billion in relief to K-12 schools—the largest-ever one-time federal investment in that system. Known as ESSER III, the funding was the third round of aid from the federal Elementary and...

The pandemic has yielded mixed realities for higher education. State budgets have largely recovered from COVID’s early economic shocks, and higher education appears likely to receive strong levels of fiscal support in the next year. 

Low-income communities were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic—particularly families who faced job losses, lacked remote work options or lost child care arrangements. In fact, low-income households with young children were...