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The transition to remote teaching in K–12 schools during the spring of 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) presented new challenges to teachers across the United States. This survey-based mixed methods study investigates these challenges, as well as differences by grade level, to better understand teachers’ experiences remote teaching. A total of 604 teachers who had completed the survey were included in this study. Findings indicate that some challenges were experienced by teachers across grade levels, with common challenges including student engagement, adjusting curriculum to the remote format, and the loss of the personal connection of teaching. Differences were also found by grade level, with elementary teachers struggling more with varying attitudes of parents regarding remote learning and adjusting their curriculum to an online format, and secondary teachers more often reporting student engagement and a general feeling of being lost or unsupported in their teaching as challenges. These challenges provide important context around the experience of remote teaching, as well as what supports teachers need to continue remote teaching.

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A number of states have school-building accountability systems that rely on comparisons of achievement from one year to the next. Improvement of the performance of schools is judged by changes in the achievement of successive groups of students. Year-to-year changes in scores for successive groups of students have a great deal of volatility. The uncertainty in the scores is the result of measurement and sampling error and nonpersistent factors that affect scores in one year but not the next. The level of uncertainty was investigated using fourth grade reading results for schools in Colorado for four years of administration of the Colorado Student Assessment Program. It was found that the year-to-year changes are quite unstable, resulting in a near zero correlation of the school gains from years one to two with those from years three to four. Some suggestions for minimizing volatility in change indices for schools are provided.

Instruction in research methods, particularly statistical training, is an essential requirement for most higher education advanced-degree students. However, results from the institutional survey reported here demonstrate that many faculty in schools of education still do not require or offer a variety of research and analysis courses to provide this training. This article will explore graduate-level requirements for research methods and data analysis courses in schools of education across the United States. Two surveys, one asking questions about research methods courses and one about statistics courses, were distributed through listservs to faculty at institutions of higher education. Twenty-eight responses, representing 28 institutions, were collected for the research course survey and 19 responses, representing 19 institutions, were collected for the statistics course survey. The number of courses offered and required and the number of credit hours for them are presented for Master’s, Ed.D., and Ph.D. students. From this study, it is evident that several universities do not offer or require many research methods or statistics courses for education graduate students. The authors intend that this information will assist faculty in rethinking what coursework is necessary to educate successful graduate students.