National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research

CALDER Principal Researcher finds positive effects of remediation in middle school on postsecondary outcomes in this new CALDER Working Paper! Read it here now!👉https://bit.ly/2VLEPso
American Institutes for Research (AIR)

⚠️WARNING⚠️ This new CALDER Opinion Brief contains the authors' unmoderated opinions & may cause dizziness or nausea🙊

The Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity: What States and Districts Can Do Now to Learn from Interventions
Read it here!👉https://bit.ly/3nrIreq

Authors: Heather Boughton, Jessica de Barros, Dan Goldhaber, Sydney Payne, & Nathaniel Schwartz
American Institutes for Research (AIR)

How effective are high school transition programs at increasing college readiness? This newly-published CALDER article in the Journal of Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis shows that unfortunately, the results have been mixed at best.

This study by researchers Zeyu Xu, Ben Backes, Amanda Oliveira, and Dan Goldhaber was funded by the Institute for Education Sciences. Read the study and blog post from the Brookings Brown Center here! https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/08/31/high-school-transition-programs-have-mixed-success-in-improving-college-readiness/

High school transition programs have mixed success in improving college readiness Cracking the code on college completion.

🚨New CALDER Working Paper!!🚨 Authors Ben Backes, James Cowan, & Dan Goldhaber dig in to gifted education and its effects on student learning environments🏫. Read the paper here!👉https://bit.ly/38ART6Z

Special thanks to partners WA OSPI, IES Research, AIR, & the National Center for Research on Gifted Ed!

FINALLY! The paper update you’ve all been waiting for, Academic Mobility in U.S. Public Schools: Evidence from Nearly 3 Million Students (that’s a lot😮)
Does academic mobility account for differences in economic mobility? Read here!👉 https://bit.ly/3m8eYFT

A number of school districts and states have implemented transition intervention programs designed to help high school students graduate ready for college. This study estimates the effectiveness of a transition program implemented statewide in Kentucky for high school seniors called Targeted Interventions (TI).

We track the college progression of seven cohorts of students as they move from high school into college. We find that the TI program significantly increased the likelihood that students would take at least 15 credits during the first term in college, a key measure that has been shown to be predictive of college completion.

These early effects, however, do not translate into statistically significant impacts on the likelihood of transfers from a 2-year to a 4-year college, or the likelihood of earning enough credits to graduate from college.
https://caldercenter.org/publications/transition-intervention-high-school-and-pathway-through-college

Transition Intervention in High School and Pathway Through College | CALDER A number of school districts and states have implemented transition intervention programs designed to help high school students graduate ready for college. This study estimates the effectiveness of a transition program implemented statewide in Kentucky for high school seniors called Targeted Interve...

Bridging the research-practitioner-policy dynamic is a must for making research useful. Thank you to CALDER Policymakers Council member Carrie Conaway for sharing her insights based on experience grounded in all of these perspectives!
https://t.co/aMFA39RuGE?amp=1

Funding Research that Is Useful and Used Looking ahead to the next 20 years of the Institute of Education Sciences

Thanks to the National Council on Teacher Quality for highlighting this CALDER study on mismatches and movement in new teacher employment!

Mismatches and movement in new teacher employment New data show the extent of the mismatch between teachers' certification and the area in which teachers are needed.

National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research updated their address.

We are thrilled to share CALDER research has been published in the Education Finance & Policy Journal! Our findings link characteristics of CTE teachers to the later outcomes of their students. Students who participated in Chapter 74 CTE programs in Massachusetts tended to have higher earnings 5 years after graduation when their CTE teachers had better skills as measured by the state's performance licensure tests.

Congratulations to Binjie Chen, Shaun Dougherty, Dan Goldhaber, Kristian Holden and Roddy Theobald!

https://direct.mit.edu/edfp/article/doi/10.1162/edfp_a_00357/106760/CTE-Teacher-Licensure-and-Long-Term-Student

CTE Teacher Licensure and Long-Term Student Outcomes | Education Finance and Policy | MIT Press Bingjie Chen, Shaun Dougherty, Dan Goldhaber, Kristian Holden, Roddy Theobald; CTE Teacher Licensure and Long-Term Student Outcomes. Education Finance and Policy 2021; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00357

Pension debt costs in teacher plans are high in most states – find the share of current teacher salaries set aside to pay for prior pension obligations here:

Contribution Gaps in Defined Benefit Pension Plans (2013) | CALDER A program of research from the American Institutes for Research with: Duke University | Northwestern University Stanford University | University of Missouri-Columbia University of Texas at Dallas | University of Virginia University of Washington

See our latest Working Paper here: http://www.caldercenter.org/publications/what%E2%80%99s-teacher-test-assessing-relationship-between-teacher-licensure-test-scores-and

"We investigate the predictive validity of teacher credential test scores for student performance in secondary STEM classrooms in Washington State. After replicating earlier findings that teacher basic-skills licensure test scores are a modest and statistically-significant predictor of student math test score gains in elementary grades, we focus on three subject/grade combinations—middle school math, 9th grade algebra and geometry, and 9th grade biology—in which both current and prior year subject-area test scores are available and estimate value-added models that provide within-subject estimates of the relationship between teacher licensure test scores and student achievement gains. We find that basic skills tests are modestly predictive of student achievement in middle and high school math and highly predictive of student achievement in high school biology. On the other hand, subject-specific tests are a statistically-significant predictor of student achievement only in high school biology."

Ben Backes on Discrimination:

"In contrast to other examples of inequality, the broader community of education researchers has largely ignored this issue. I believe there are two contributing factors. The first is that while there is evidence of discrimination against Asian-Americans in the admissions process, they still do well on measures such as college graduation and household income, where they substantially exceed the national average. By contrast, the household wealth of black and Hispanic families continues to lag far behind that of whites. Thus, for better or worse, it is difficult to justify spending research money and effort on a group that is collectively faring well when there are other groups that face severe challenges when available time for research is finite.

The second reason is that some view these lawsuits as attacks against all race-based preferences, including those that benefit under-represented minorities such as blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, in their recent complaint, the AACE writes that they “do not support [the] continuation” of race-based preferences. By framing the issue as an all-or-nothing choice about race-based preferences, the AACE has potentially alienated some who believe that discrimination against Asian-Americans is unfair but that preferences for under-represented minorities should remain. An alternative proposal to put Asian-Americans on the same footing as whites in admissions may have garnered broader support."

When is discrimination okay? This week the Asian-American Coalition for Education (AACE) filed an official complaint to the U.S. Office for Civil Rights against elite institutions, accusing them of discrimination against Asian-Americans in their admissions process. Ben Backes asks the hard question: Is discriminating against As...

Helen Ladd on school inspection systems:

"I urge state policymakers to seize the opportunity made available under ESSA to develop and invest in school inspection systems. And I encourage federal policymakers, to help by providing funding to states to help them develop high quality systems—and to disseminate research on their effectiveness.

The potential benefits are great. The challenge is to convince policymakers that qualitative judgements, not just quantifiable outcomes such as test scores, have an important role to play in raising the quality of schools by assuring that they attend to the needs of all their students and fostering a broad range of student outcomes."

Now is the time to experiment with inspections for school accountability In a new Chalkboard post, Helen F. Ladd argues that now is the time to experiment with inspections for school accountability. The challenge is to convince policymakers that qualitative judgements, not just quantifiable outcomes such as test scores, have an important role to play in raising the…

See the latest CALDER Working Paper on edTPA here: http://www.caldercenter.org/publications/evaluating-prospective-teachers-testing-predictive-validity-edtpa

"Given the rapid policy diffusion of the edTPA, a performance-based, subject-specific assessment of teacher candidates, it is surprising that there is currently no existing large-scale research linking it to outcomes for inservice teachers and their students. We use longitudinal data from Washington State that include information on teacher candidates’ scores on the edTPA to provide estimates of the extent to which edTPA performance is predictive of the likelihood of employment in the teacher workforce and value-added measures of teacher effectiveness. While edTPA scores are highly predictive of employment in the state’s public teaching workforce, evidence on the relationship between edTPA scores and teaching effectiveness is more mixed. Specifically, continuous edTPA scores are a significant predictor of student mathematics achievement in some specifications, but when we consider that the edTPA is a binary screen of teaching effectiveness (i.e., pass/fail), we find that passing the edTPA is significantly predictive of teacher effectiveness in reading but not in mathematics."

CALDER Director Dan Goldhaber joins Katharine Strunk and Joshua Cowen in a reaction to the Vergara decision on teacher tenure.

“So let’s consider how we might better serve children. As researchers on these issues, we believe that no state or districtwide policies can provide the one best way to assign teachers. Principals and school leaders require the flexibility to make many staffing decisions on their own.”

http://ow.ly/4nnv5X

Despite ruling, tenure laws are bad for students Two courts have now found that the way the state compels districts to handle key personnel decisions results in lower-quality teachers. Whether...

Open spots at the conference are going fast. Register today so that you wont miss these presentations!

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/9th-annual-calder-research-conference-tickets-20586658249

New CALDER research on the relationship between demographics in student teaching classrooms and future outcomes.

http://www.caldercenter.org/publications/does-match-matter-exploring-whether-student-teaching-experiences-affect-teacher

Registration for the 2016 CALDER Conference opens TODAY. You can find the agenda and register for the conference below.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/9th-annual-calder-research-conference-tickets-20586658249

As we close out 2015, check out some of the top on teacher quality from the year as highlighted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, including two papers by our own Dan Goldhaber and Roddy Theobald.

TQB: Teacher Quality Bulletin Newsletter Just make sure you leave before they read the headline findings. TNTP estimates that, on average, districts spend a whopping $18,000 on professional development per teacher per year (cue coffee spit-take). One would think all that spending would provide some decent returns. Not so—few teachers showe…

From the CALDER family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy holidays!

See new research from Mike Hansen, Umut Ozek, and Zeyu Xu in the latest edition of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis here.

http://epa.sagepub.com/content/37/4/458.full

In this study we use data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Washington State during the Great Recession to provide the first evidence about the impact of the layoff process on teacher productivity.

In both sites we find that teachers impacted by the layoff process are less productive than those who do not face layoff-induced job threat.

We argue that these results are driven by teachers’ job insecurity and uncertainty associated with the layoff process, since various tests rule out alternate explanations, including selection bias or temporary drops in productivity associated with transitions to a new school, grade level, or teaching position.

Are There Hidden Costs Associated With Conducting Layoffs? The Impact of RIFs and Layoffs on... Few studies examine employee responses to layoff-induced unemployment risk, and none that we know of attempt to quantify the impact of the layoff process on individual employee productivity. In this study we use data from the Los Angeles Unified Scho

"Our results suggest that the increased concentration of TFA corps members in schools was associated with a reduction in TFA mobility across schools after the first year of service, but it did not affect the overall retention of corps members in the district after the two-year commitment.

In addition, we find evidence suggesting non-TFA teachers in schools with a relatively high proportion of TFA corps members were significantly more likely to leave the district. We also find that TFA corps members retained beyond the two-year commitment performed substantially better in mathematics during their first two years of teaching: evidence of positive selection into postcommitment retention.

Finally, we produce steady-state estimates of the minimum TFA effects necessary for the district to prefer hiring a TFA corps member relative to a non-TFA hire. TFA corps members in the district exceed this minimum value in both reading and mathematics."

Teacher Attrition and Mobility During the Teach For America Clustering Strategy in Miami-Dade... We examine the extent to which clustering large numbers of Teach For America (TFA) corps members in a limited number of low-performing schools was accompanied by changes in teacher mobility decisions. Using longitudinal data from Miami-Dade spanning

Read the latest on work by CALDER researchers David Figlio and Jeffrey Roth in Wonkblog.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/why-girls-do-so-much-better-than-boys-in-school/

"The bottom line is that we join AERA’s call for continued research into VAMs, but believe that this call should be broadened to include any performance measure. We also caution that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. All performance measures are imperfect. If we are looking for a performance measure that has zero errors, we ought to abandon performance evaluation altogether. The ultimate way to judge the efficacy of different measures is whether they help policymakers make decisions that lead to better outcomes for students."

Response to AERA statement on value-added measures: Where are the cautionary statements on... Michael Hansen and Dan Goldbaher join AERA's call for continued research into value-added measures, but believe that this call should be…

See more on pensions from Cory Koedel on the Brookings Institution's Brown Center Chalkboard.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2015/11/18-schools-teachers-growing-pension-burden-koedel

Learn more about how pension incentives influence when teachers retire and why the structure of current pension plans make it more difficult for teachers to move to new districts or states.

http://www.caldercenter.org/paying-attention-teacher-pensions

CALDER releases new research on teacher pensions. Learn more here:

http://www.caldercenter.org/publications/benefit-or-burden-intergenerational-inequity-teacher-pension-plans