Achievement Network i3 Program Evaluation

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Project Status: Current
Focus Area: School Improvement & Redesign
Location: Massachusetts, Louisiana, & Illinois

Funded by the Federal Government through i3, this project is a rigorous evaluation of The Achievement Network’s (ANet) impact on school outcomes. ANet provides interim assessments and data-driven strategies to schools to identify and close gaps in student learning and attempts to embed those strategies into schools’ everyday routines. This study is using a school-level random assignment design to estimate the impact of ANet. Study sites include districts in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

Read the full research report

View year-two school leader and teacher surveys

Resources

West, M. R., Morton, B. A., & Herlihy, C. M. (2016). Achievement Network’s Investing in Innovation Expansion: Impacts on Educator Practice and Student Achievement.Abstract

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.

The Achievement Network
The Achievement Network (ANet) is a nonprofit organization that works to close the achievement gap and help all students attain academic excellence. It does so by providing schools serving high-need students in grades 3–8 with data-driven strategies to identify and close gaps in student learning. ANet contracted with CEPR as their partner in their i3 Evaluation study, researching and estimating ANet's impact on student academic performance.