Working Papers

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Summer School as an Academic Recovery Strategy After COVID-19: Evidence from Summer 2023

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This report examines the impact of 2023 summer programs on academic recovery. It finds modest but significant improvements in student math achievement and no significant improvements in reading.

Going the Distance or Growing More Remote? The Academic Impacts of Course Modality following Pandemic-Era Investments

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This brief examines how online course participation affects student outcomes in LACCD, finding slight GPA reductions, no effect on credits earned, and moderate negative impacts on persistence that vary by modality, dosage, and course subject.

Lifting Up Attendance in Rural Districts

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Absenteeism in K-12 schools has remained high following the COVID-19 pandemic and districts need low-cost strategies to improve attendance. In 2020-21, the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks (NCRERN) piloted a personalized messaging...

Explaining Teacher Effects on Achievement Using Measures from Multiple Research Traditions

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Researchers have identified many characteristics of teachers and teaching that contribute to student outcomes. However, most studies investigate only a small number of these characteristics, likely underestimating the overall contribution. In this paper...

Exploring Explanations for the “Weak” Relationship Between Value Added and Observation-Based Measures of Teacher Performance

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The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence From Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-Career Teachers

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The effect of evaluation on employee performance is traditionally studied in the context of the principal-agent problem. Evaluation can, however, also be characterized as an investment in the evaluated employee’s human capital. We study a sample of mid...

Using Validity Criteria to Enable Model Selection: An Exploratory Analysis

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In this paper, the authors propose that an important determinant of value-added model choice should be alignment with alternative indicators of teacher and teaching quality. Such alignment makes sense from a theoretical perspective because better...

What Does It Mean to be Ranked a “High” or “Low” Value-Added Teacher? Observing Differences in Instructional Quality Across Districts

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Using Surveys as Proxies for Observations in Measuring Mathematics Instruction

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Using data from elementary mathematics teachers, we examine the correspondence between selfreports and observational measures of two instructional dimensions—reform-orientation and classroom climate—and the relative ability of these measures to predict...

Validating Arguments for Observational Instruments: Attending to Multiple Sources of Variation

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