Every year, RAND researchers survey thousands of teachers, principals, and superintendents through the American Educator Panels. And we recently launched two new panels: the American Youth Panel and the American Parents Panel. Together, these resources provide a complete set of views on the state of public education.
As the new school year gets underway, it's a perfect time to review some of what we've learned. Here are five key findings:
Many students are bored with math. About half of middle and high schoolers are losing interest during their math lessons about half or more of the time.
About half of educators serving multilingual youth feel not at all or only somewhat prepared to teach these students.
Female teachers have been consistently more likely than male teachers to report frequent job-related stress. In 2025, that gap widened to 22 percentage points.
More teachers are using high-quality curricula. In fact, nearly half of teachers said they regularly used a standards-aligned material. That proportion was unthinkable a decade ago.
Chronic absenteeism—students missing 10 percent or more of school days—is still a problem. In roughly half of urban school districts, more than 30 percent of students were chronically absent during the 2024–2025 school year.
China is leading dozens of smart city projects across the Middle East. While smart city technology can improve public services and safety, it can also be used to suppress dissent, invade privacy, and reinforce authoritarian control. That's why China's growing role in smart cities may raise concerns. A new RAND paper explores these potential risks and what they might mean for U.S.-China competition and America's relationships in the Middle East.
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is a health care system, not an insurance program. Many veterans enrolled in VHA keep private or government-subsidized insurance so they can choose where to seek care. (In 2023, about 84 percent of VHA enrollees reported having some form of insurance coverage.) RAND's Erin Taylor recently examined how insurance coverage interacts with VHA care and identified situations that could lead to duplicative payments.
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