State education departments find themselves pressured to reduce costs while improving student performance. To do so, state education departments must measure the performance of each school district in an objective, data-informed manner. We present a benchmarking methodology and illustrate its application in New York State school districts. We…

Research has shown that mathematical proficiency gaps are related to students' and schools' indicators of poverty, with fewer studies on neighborhood effects on achievement gaps. Although this literature has accounted for students' nesting within schools, so far, methodological constraints have not allowed researchers to formally account for…

Performance-based scholarships have two main goals: (1) to give students more money for college; and (2) to provide incentives for academic progress. MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of these scholarships in a diverse set of states, institutions, and low-income student…

This case study analyzes and documents factors that affect teacher learning and instructional practices in connection to the design your own (DYO) interim or periodic assessment process at one newly developed high school in New York City. Examining these factors through Riggan and Nabors Olah's (2011) conceptual framework offers insights into the…

There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare…

The Performance Indicators in Education program is designed to develop methods of measuring the performance in reading and arithmetic achievement at the elementary school level of the schools of New York State. From data on file at the State Education Department, a set of profiles was developed for each of 628 school districts indicating how the…