The project team is still awaiting student test data to complete the evaluation, but this brief provides a short update on survey results. Students of MQI-coached teachers report that their teachers ask more substantive questions, and require more use of mathematical vocabulary as compared to students of control teachers. Students in MQI-coached classrooms also reported more student talk in class. Teachers who received MQI Coaching tended to find their professional development significantly more useful than control teachers, and were also more likely to report that their mathematics instruction improved over the course of the year.
Against the backdrop of a contentious ballot question, charter schools in Massachusetts have faced scrutiny across multiple dimensions. This event brings together several of the preeminent researchers on the topic to share their findings, followed by a period of directed questions, and audience Q&A.
In Massachusetts, the charter school debate has centered on four concerns:
that the achievement of the high-scoring charter schools is due to selective admission and retention policies and not the education that the charter schools provide,
that charter schools are underserving English language learners and special education students,
that charter schools are disciplining students at higher rates in order to drive troublesome students back to traditional schools, and
that charter schools are undermining traditional public schools financially.
This report summarizes the evidence pertaining to these four concerns.
Achievement Network (ANet) was founded in 2005 as a school-level intervention to support the use of academic content standards and assessments to improve teaching and learning. Initially developed within the Boston charter school sector, it has expanded to serve over 500 schools in nine geographic networks across the United States. The program is based on the belief that if teachers are provided with timely data on student performance from interim assessments tied to state standards, if school leaders provide support and create structures that help them use that data to identify student weaknesses, and if teachers have knowledge of how to improve the performance of students who are falling behind, then they will become more effective at identifying and addressing gaps in student learning. This will, in turn, improve student performance, particularly for high-need students.
In 2010, ANet received a development grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) Program. The grant funded both the expansion of the program to serve up to 60 additional schools in five school districts, as well as an external evaluation of the expansion. The Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University partnered with ANet to design a matched-pair, school-randomized evaluation of their program’s impact on educator practice and student achievement in schools participating in its i3-funded expansion.
With the debate over the federal role in education at rest with the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), it is time to refocus attention on how to help the states move forward and succeed using the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In this Askwith Forum, Professor Thomas Kane will share findings about CCSS implementation strategies from the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. This will be followed by a panel of educators, who will share their experiences, pain points, and successes with the CCSS over this past year.
Subtle policy adjustments can induce relatively large “ripple effects.” We evaluate a College Board initiative that increased the number of free SAT score reports available to low-income students and changed the time horizon for using these score reports. Using a difference-in-differences analytic strategy, we estimate that targeted students were roughly 10 percentage points more likely to send eight or more reports. The policy improved on-time college attendance and 6-year bachelor’s completion by about 2 percentage points. Impacts were realized primarily by students who were competitive candidates for 4-year college admission. The bachelor’s completion impacts are larger than would be expected based on the number of students driven by the policy change to enroll in college and to shift into more selective colleges. The unexplained portion of the completion effects may result from improvements in nonacademic fit between students and the postsecondary institutions in which they enroll.
In 2011, the Strategic Data Project (SDP) began a partnership with the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS). As part of this partnership, SDP collaborated with WCPSS to analyze patterns of high school students’ on-track status, graduation, college enrollment, and college persistence. This set of high-leverage, policy-relevant analyses constitutes the SDP College-Going Diagnostic.
This toolkit provides practical guidance for education practitioners on using video observations to help teachers accelerate their development. Inside you will find four sections to help you start video observations in your school community. Each section includes a discussion of important lessons from the Best Foot Forward project, a study of digital video in classroom observations, and adaptable tools for implementation.
The Strategic Data Project (SDP) and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) collaborated on the SDP College-Going Diagnostic—a set of policy-relevant analyses that track Kentucky public school students’ graduation from high school through enrollment and persistence in college. This interactive report highlights the key findings from this research collaboration and is designed to facilitate exploration across important student characteristics.
Recent investigations into the education production function have moved beyond traditional teacher inputs, such as education, certification, and salary, focusing instead on observational measures of teaching practice. However, challenges to identification mean that this work has yet to coalesce around specific instructional dimensions that increase student achievement. I build on this discussion by exploiting within-school, between-grade, and cross-cohort variation in scores from two observation instruments; further, I condition on a uniquely rich set of teacher characteristics, practices, and skills. Findings indicate that inquiry-oriented instruction positively predicts student achievement. Content errors and imprecisions are negatively related, though these estimates are sensitive to the set of covariates included in the model. Two other dimensions of instruction, classroom emotional support and classroom organization, are not related to this outcome. Findings can inform recruitment and development efforts aimed at improving the quality of the teacher workforce.
In an effort to promote college enrollment and degree completion, the state of Tennessee has invested a student-centric, technology-based blended learning model of high school mathematics instruction, The Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support (SAILS).
The SAILS program provides high school seniors likely to require math remediation in college with coursework equivalent to college-level developmental education classes. Eligible students who complete the program are able to satisfy math require-ments for high school graduation and, upon postsecondary matriculation, to enroll directly in credit-bearing coursework toward a college degree.
Researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education are partnering with the SAILS Program and Tennessee state leadership to conduct an evaluation of SAILS. Using a range of quantitative and qualitative research methods, the study will examine the impact of participation in SAILS on students’ short- and long-term outcomes and investigate the mechanisms by which the program may promote students’ postsecondary success.
This case illustrates how the work of leaders and analysts in the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) and the agency’s partnership with the Strategic Data Project (SDP), a program of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, created momentum for statewide policy change. By exploring Delaware leaders’ use of data and analytics to challenge assumptions and inform the development of better policies and practices, the case illustrates the importance of leadership, analytic and technical competency, and strategic partnerships when leading education reform. The case specifically highlights the power of human capital analytics to diagnose the current status of Delaware’s educator pipeline, from preparation through development and retention, and how effectively communicating with these analyses built coalitions of support and drove a culture of data use at both the state and district level. Download the case study [SDP website]