The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

The use of dual credit has been expanding rapidly. Dual credit is a college course taken by a high school student for which both college and high school credit is given. Previous studies provided limited quantitative evidence that dual credit/dual enrollment is directly connected to positive student outcomes. In this study, predictive statistics…

The use of data to inform decisionmaking and practice at the school and district levels is now a common feature of reform efforts. Advances in districts' technological capacities have produced data systems that allow a flow of data to and from schools, often to the point of creating an overwhelming flood of information. To make the flow of…

This report, the fourth in an IERC series on public school principals in Illinois, summarizes recent research on the characteristics associated with principal effectiveness and examines Illinois data on the relationship between principal characteristics, student proficiency, and teacher qualifications. In order to investigate the relationships…

Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred interest in teacher labor markets. Research documents that better qualified teachers typically work in more advantaged schools but cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand. To isolate teacher preferences, we document which schools prospective…

Using Chicago data, we examine whether teacher qualifications and school climate are related and if so, how they interact to improve student learning. We find that schools that are advantaged in one tend to be advantaged in the other. Moreover, while collective teacher qualifications and dimensions of climate independently influence…

Purpose and Method of Study. The primary purpose of this research was to explore the beliefs of Illinois public school superintendents concerning the ability of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to enable school reform. A secondary purpose of this study was to describe the extent to which those beliefs varied based on the size of school district, type…

Recent laboratory and field experiments have shown the inability of existing oscillatory flow ripple predictors to accurately predict both ripple size and planform geometry. However, at this time, only partial adaptations of these predictors have been proposed in the literature to account for the observed discrepancies with experimental data…

This study explored the relationship between literacy coaching and student reading achievement in grades K-1 in a school district that received a Reading First grant. The study analyzed how literacy coaches spent their time and explored the relationship between the amount and content of coaching and student reading achievement at the teacher level…

This article takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers for any reason and without the…

Since the inception of special education, researchers have identified higher proportions of minority students with disabilities than expected. Yet, relatively few studies have considered the contributions of the school context on a large scale to the identification of students with mental retardation (MR), emotional disturbance (ED), and learning…

In this study, the author and her colleagues examined the higher education pipeline of Early Childhood teachers in Chicago in order to make recommendations for strategies to increase the number of qualified Early Childhood teachers. Key findings of this study include: (1) The Chicago Early Childhood Education (ECE) pipeline for undergraduate…

The high school dropout problem has been called a national crisis. Educators, researchers, and policymakers continue to work to identify effective dropout prevention approaches. One important element of such prevention efforts is the identification of students at highest risk for dropping out and then the targeting of resources to keep them in…

Using unique administrative data on Chicago public high school students and their teachers, we are able to estimate the importance of teachers on student mathematical achievement. We find that teachers are educationally and statistically important. To be sure, sampling variation and other measurement issues can strongly influence estimates of…

The transition into high school is a critical point in the educational pipeline, and ninth-grade can be characterized as one of its leakiest junctures. This policy brief examines how some states and districts are currently easing the transition into high school for students. It focuses on five key challenges that states, districts and schools…