2025

This report shares findings from the Utah Education Policy Center’s 2024–2025 evaluation of Volunteer for Good, a four-year pilot program (2024–2028) developed by the Utah Commission on Service and Volunteerism (UServeUtah). The program promotes volunteerism and seeks to strengthen high school students’ well-being, civic engagement, and academic and social success. Operating in five Local Education Agencies (Garfield, Granite, Nebo, and Sevier School Districts, and Mountain Heights Academy), the Year 1 evaluation summarizes key implementation metrics, highlights facilitators and barriers to implementation, and provides preliminary insights into how participation relates to students’ perceptions of social connectedness and emotional well-being.

This report presents findings from an independent evaluation of Beast Academy Online, a digital mathematics learning platform, conducted by the Utah Education Policy Center (UEPC) in partnership with Art of Problem Solving. The findings indicate that regular use of Beast Academy Online supports mathematics achievement for high-ability elementary students, a group often overlooked in remediation-focused recovery efforts. Based on its correlational design with statistical controls for selection bias, this study provides Promising Evidence under ESSA Tier 3.

The Utah Education Policy Center (UEPC), in a research practice partnership with the Utah State Board of Education (USBE), conducted a survey study to examine why preservice teachers in Utah choose careers in special vs. general education, how they perceive the special education teaching profession, and what factors influence these perceptions.

This report provides findings from the Utah Education Policy Center’s 2024-2025 evaluation of STEM Action Center’s K-12 Math Personalized Learning Software Grant Program. Using teacher surveys, student surveys, math learning software (MLS) usage data, and statewide administrative data, the evaluation examined five key evaluation questions related to the quality of MLS implementation, teacher and student perceptions of its value, and the relationship between MLS usage and student math attitudes and achievement.

The Youth Teaching Youth (YTY) program at the Natural History Museum of Utah engages middle school students as science educators for elementary students and provides high school participants with paid internship opportunities. This report presents findings from the Utah Education Policy Center’s evaluation of YTY, examining its impact on three key outcomes: middle school students’ end-of-year science test scores, chronic absenteeism rates, and on-time high school graduation rates.