Teachers spend most of their time in school in classrooms, and their instruction and teaching practices may be affected by classroom context such as class size. We examine whether teacher effects interact with classroom context such as class size. Specifically, we seek to determine whether teacher effects are more pronounced in small classes than…

Value-added assessment methods have been criticized by researchers and policy makers for a number of reasons. One issue includes the sensitivity of model results across different outcome measures. This study examined the utility of incorporating multivariate latent variable approaches within a traditional value-added framework. We evaluated the…

The purpose of this ex post facto study was to compare the effect the Read Well and the Reading Street curriculums had on achievement test scores. Data from the "Stanford Achievement Test, 10th ed." (SAT10) were examined using total reading scale scores for males and females at the kindergarten and first- and second-grade levels. Three…

We estimate the effects of relative age in kindergarten using data from an experiment where children of the same age were randomly assigned to different kindergarten classmates. We exploit the resulting experimental variation in relative age in conjunction with variation in expected kindergarten entry age based on birth date to account for…

In this study, we examined how the relationships between one observation protocol, the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO), and value-added measures shift when different tests are used to assess student achievement. Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, we found that PLATO was more strongly related to the…

In fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project to test new approaches to recognizing effective teaching. The project's goal is to help build fair and reliable systems for teacher observation and feedback to help teachers improve and administrators make better personnel decisions.…

Through a synthesis of test publisher norms and national longitudinal datasets, this study provides new national norms of academic growth in K-12 reading and math that can be used to reinterpret conventional effect sizes in time units. We propose d' a time-indexed effect size metric to estimate how long it would take for an "untreated"…

In fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project to test new approaches to measuring effective teaching. The goal of the MET project is to improve the quality of information about teaching effectiveness available to education professionals within states and districts--information that…

Recent years have seen the convergence of two major policy streams in U.S. K-12 education: standards/accountability and teacher quality reforms. Work in these areas has led to the creation of multiple measures of teacher quality, including measures of their instructional alignment to standards/assessments, observational and student survey measures…

"Saxon Elementary School Math," published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a core curriculum for students in kindergarten through grade 5. A distinguishing feature of "Saxon Elementary School Math" is its use of a distributed approach, as opposed to a chapter-based approach, for instruction and assessment. The program is built…

In the summer of 2011, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to provide a four-day training for all evaluators across the state. NIET trained more than 5,000 evaluators intensively in the state model (districts using alternative instruments delivered their own training).…

This study examined the impact of grade repetition or retention on the subsequent academic performance of students in rural and urban areas in northeast Tennessee. A total of 40 students who were retained in grades 3 or 5 during the 1985-1986 school year, and 70 students who were not retained, completed the Stanford Achievement Test yearly between…

Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio) was a large-scale randomized trial of reduced class sizes in kindergarten through the third grade. Because of the scope of the experiment, it has been used in many policy discussions. For example, the California statewide class-size-reduction policy was justified, in part, by the successes of…

The racial interactions between teachers and students can influence student performance in several ways. For example, pupils may trust and respect someone with whom they share a salient characteristic, making learning come more easily. Likewise, a teacher of the same race may serve as a more effective role model, boosting students' confidence and…