Out of the Tower, Into the Schools: How New IES Goals Will Reshape

Researcher Roles

John Q. Easton

AERA 2010 Conference

Presidential Session

May 2, 2010

Kenwood Academy High School

• High-poverty school on Chicago’s Southside• Silver Medal School: US News and World Report • Freshman On-Track Rate Up 20 points• About 90 percent of students say school does a

good (or better) job with academic rigor and supportive staff

Each Week of Absence in the Ninth Grade Is Associated With a Dramatically Reduced Likelihood of Graduating

SOURCE: Consortium on Chicago School Research, What Matters, 2007.

Only Students Who Exceed Standards on Their Eighth-Grade ISAT Math Tests Have at Least a 62% Chance of

Scoring 20 on Their ACT

SOURCE: Consortium on Chicago School Research, Path to 20, 2008.

ACT Success: Good Grades, Not Test Practice

Two Key Findings• Students made smaller gains from the PLAN to

the ACT the more their teachers spent class time on test practice and used materials from test-prep companies

• Regardless of whether students start with high or low test scores, those who earn As and Bs in their classes make big gains in a short period of time. Juniors who barely pass with Cs and Ds either make no progress in their scores (moving from the PLAN to ACT), or fall behind.

Five Key Themes Covered

• Make our work more relevant and useful• Study schools as organizations• Create new measures and expand

repertoire of rigorous methodologies • Deepen understanding of teaching quality• Train new generation of researchers

NAEP Math Report:

Explaining Student

Performance in Key

Content Area

Boston Public Schools and Harvard: Partners in Fixing Vocabulary Challenge

SOURCE: Consortium on Chicago School Research, Potholes, 2008.

Students Who Were Accepted Into a 4-year College Were Much More Likely to Enroll if

They Completed the FAFSA

“Data Wise” Improvement Process: Eight Steps for Using Test Data to

Improve Teaching and Learning

SOURCE: Data Wise, Harvard Education Press, 2005.

Coming Soon From NCEE: The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts

• First large-scale randomized controlled trial of charter schools with lotteries in multiple states

• Weighs in on relevant research debate: Whether, how, and under what circumstances charter schools improve the outcomes of students who attend them

• Correlational analysis by length of school day/school year, enrollment, autonomy, student-teacher ratio, ability grouping, concentration of poverty, average student achievement levels, locale (urban, rural, etc.), autonomy, revenues, management, and years operating

Relationships of Essential Supports With Improvements in Value-Added, 1997–2005

Essential Support Effect of strength in base year

Effect of improvement

School leadership

Instructional leadership .18*** .10**

Program coherence .15*** .10**

Parent community ties

Parent involvement in the school .34*** .14***

Professional capacity

Reflective dialogue .03 .02

Collective responsibility .22*** .11**

Orientation toward innovation .21*** .08*

School commitment .29*** .15***

Student-centered learning climate

Safety .43*** .17***

SOURCE: Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago.

Predicting Achievement: Short Grit Scale by Duckworth et al.

• I am a hard worker.• I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a

different one.• I have been obsessed with a certain idea or

project for a short time but later lost interest. • I finish whatever I begin.• Setbacks don’t discourage me.• I am diligent.• New ideas and projects sometimes distract me

from previous ones.

New Roles for Researchers in Action-Oriented Partnerships

• Balance long-term knowledge with providing service to districts

• Design studies and refine research questions rather than create questions.

• Understand how to speak, write and present to audience of practitioners and policy makers.

• Use descriptive data to reveal practices and outcomes in useful ways.

• Build a theory of action around the topic of concern.• Consider the interconnectedness of classroom, school

and district relationships when creating interventions.