The goal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to increase access to health insurance and decrease health care cost while improving health care quality. With more articles examining the relationship between one of the ACA provisions and dental health outcomes, we systematically reviewed the effect of the ACA on dental care coverage and access to dental services. We searched literature using the National Library of Medicine’s Medline (PubMed) and Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science between January 2010 and November 2020. We identified 33 articles related to dental coverage, and access/utilization of dental care services. This systematic review of studies showed that the ACA resulted in gains in dental coverage for adults and children, whereas results were mixed with dental care access. Overall, we found that the policy led to a decrease in cost barriers, an increase in private dental coverage for young adults, and increased dental care use among low-income childless adults. The implementation of the ACA was not directly associated with dental insurance coverage among people in the U.S. However, results suggest positive spillover effects of the ACA on dental care coverage and utilization by people in the national level dataset.

Over the past few decades, advances in computing power and the widespread adoption of the Internet have completely transformed the ways that people obtain information, communicate, educate, and conduct business. Unfortunately, access to technology and to the training required to use technology are not equitably distributed in the United States, with access much lower in rural areas than urban areas. Further, the urban–rural divide disproportionately affects people in groups that have been historically marginalized in computing, particularly students with disabilities. To address this gap in access and opportunity, we are using Design-Based Research and co-design methods to develop a new technology-based intervention called Furthering Rural Adoption of Computers and Technology through Artistic Lessons (FRACTAL) that incorporates computer science and artificial intelligence into art classes in rural middle schools. In this paper, we describe our co-design process, articulate how and why Design-Based Research and co-design are useful for developing technology-based interventions in schools, and discuss our initial steps to develop FRACTAL in partnership with teachers in rural schools to address the needs of historically disenfranchised and marginalized students.

Charter schools are one of the fastest-growing forms of school choice. However, concerns have been raised about the quality of special education provided to students with disabilities. Results of a systematic review of court filings involving charter schools and special education and/or students with disabilities reveal recurring themes pertaining to violations of federal disability laws. This paper offers a discussion of these findings and recommendations for better serving the needs of students with disabilities attending charter schools.

Group design studies in education include groups such as students, teachers, caregivers, schools, or districts assigned to conditions, typically treatment and control, to compare outcomes between the groups. Although the use of group designs in education has become more frequent and robust, the use of group designs in rural education lags far behind and few special education group design studies including rural participants appear in the literature. To support additional rigorous group design studies in special education, we provide an overview of common group designs and applications in rural special education, challenges and potential solutions, and future directions for enhancing group design studies in rural special education research.

We investigated U.S. state and national trends in the enrollment of students ages 6 to 21 years under the specific learning disability (SLD) category across 15 consecutive school years (2005–2006 to 2019–2020). We used multi-level modeling to estimate the effects of state and time on SLD enrollment and conducted a policy analysis of three states (Rhode Island, Kansas, and New Mexico) to examine changes in SLD policy (including Response to Intervention) in conjunction with trends in enrollment. Results indicate significant differences in SLD enrollment between states in the initial year and significant decreases in SLD enrollment over time, but no significant differences in the change in SLD enrollment between states. Results from the policy analysis suggest that the state policy context (including legal requirements in the SLD evaluation process), type of RTI model, and method of SLD evaluation can affect SLD enrollment. We discuss these results within the context of increased variability in RTI models.