blog posts and news stories

Conference Season 2015

Empirical researchers are traveling all over the country this conference season. Come meet our researchers as we discuss our work at the following events. If you plan to attend any of these, please get in touch so we can schedule a time to speak with you, or come by to see us at our presentations.

AEFP

We are pleased to announce that we will have our fifth appearance at the 40th annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP). Join us in the afternoon on Friday, February 27th at the Marriott Wardman Park, Washington DC as Empirical’s Senior Research Scientist Valeriy Lazarev and CEO Denis Newman present on Methods of Teacher Evaluation in Concurrent Session 7. Denis will also be the acting discussant and chair on Friday morning at 8am in Session 4.07 titled Preparation/Certification and Evaluation of Leaders/Teachers.

SREE

Attendees of this spring’s Society for Research on Effectiveness (SREE) Conference, held in Washington, DC March 5-7, will have the opportunity to discuss instructional strategies and programs to improve mathematics with Empirical Education’s Chief Scientist Andrew P. Jaciw. The presentation, Assessing Impacts of Math in Focus, a ‘Singapore Math’ Program for American Schools, will take place on Friday, March 6 at 1pm in the Park Hyatt Hotel, Ballroom Level Gallery 3.

ASCD

This year’s 70th annual conference for ASCD will take place in Houston, TX on March 21-23. We invite you to schedule a meeting with CEO Denis Newman while he’s there.

AERA

We will again be presenting at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Join the Empirical Education team in Chicago, Illinois from April 16-20, 2015. Our presentations will cover research under the Division H (Research, Evaluation, and Assessment in Schools) Section 2 symposium: Program Evaluation in Schools.

1. Formative Evaluation on the Process of Scaling Up Reading Apprenticeship Authors: Jenna Lynn Zacamy, Megan Toby, Andrew P. Jaciw, and Denis Newman
2. The Evaluation of Internet-based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education (iRAISE) Authors: Megan Toby, Jenna Lynn Zacamy, Andrew P. Jaciw, and Denis Newman

We look forward to seeing you at our sessions to discuss our research. As soon as we have the schedule for these presentations, we will post them here. As has become tradition, we plan to host yet another of our popular AERA receptions. Details about the reception will follow in the months to come.

Empirical Education Presents Initial Results from i3 Validation Grant Evaluation

Our director of research operations, Jenna Zacamy, joined Cheri Fancsali from IMPAQ International and Cyndy Greenleaf from the Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) at WestEd at the Literacy Research Association (LRA) conference in Dallas, TX on December 4. Together, they conducted a symposium, which was the first formal presentation of findings from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Validation grant, Reading Apprenticeship Improving Secondary Education (RAISE). WestEd won the grant in 2010 with Empirical Education and IMPAQ serving as the evaluators. There are two ongoing evaluations: the first includes a randomized control trial (RCT) of over 40 schools in California and Pennsylvania investigating the impact of Reading Apprenticeship on teacher instructional practices and student achievement; the second is a formative evaluation spanning four states and 150+ schools investigating how the school systems build capacity to implement and disseminate Reading Apprenticeship and sustain these efforts. The symposium’s discussant, P. David Pearson (UC Berkeley), provided praise of the design and effort of both studies stating that he has “never seen such thoughtful and extensive evaluations.” Preliminary findings from the RCT show that Reading Apprenticeship teachers provide students more opportunities to practice metacognitive strategies and foster and support more student collaboration opportunities. Findings from the second year of the formative evaluation suggest high levels of buy-in and commitment from both school administrators and teachers, but also identify competing initiatives and priorities as a primary challenge to sustainability. Initial findings of our five-year, multi-state study of RAISE are promising, but reflect the real-world complexity of scaling up and evaluating literacy initiatives across several contexts. Final results from both studies will be available in 2015.

View the information presented at LRA here and here.

Empirical Presents about Aspire Public School’s t3 System at AEA 2013

Empirical Education presented at the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) in Washington, DC. Our newest research manager, Kristen Koue, along with our chief scientist, Andrew Jaciw reflected on striking the right balance between conducting a rigorous randomized control trial that meets i3 grant parameters, while also conducting an implementation evaluation that provides useful formative feedback to the Aspire population.