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Can We Measure the Measures of Teaching Effectiveness?

Teacher evaluation has become the hot topic in education. State and local agencies are quickly implementing new programs spurred by federal initiatives and evidence that teacher effectiveness is a major contributor to student growth. The Chicago teachers’ strike brought out the deep divisions over the issue of evaluations. There, the focus was on the use of student achievement gains, or value-added. But the other side of evaluation—systematic classroom observations by administrators—is also raising interest. Teaching is a very complex skill, and the development of frameworks for describing and measuring its interlocking elements is an area of active and pressing research. The movement toward using observations as part of teacher evaluation is not without controversy. A recent OpEd in Education Week by Mike Schmoker criticizes the rapid implementation of what he considers overly complex evaluation templates “without any solid evidence that it promotes better teaching.”

There are researchers engaged in the careful study of evaluation systems, including the combination of value-added and observations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a large team of researchers through its Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, which has already produced an array of reports for both academic and practitioner audiences (with more to come). But research can be ponderous, especially when the question is whether such systems can impact teacher effectiveness. A year ago, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) awarded an $18 million contract to AIR to conduct a randomized experiment to measure the impact of a teacher and leader evaluation system on student achievement, classroom practices, and teacher and principal mobility. The experiment is scheduled to start this school year and results will likely start appearing by 2015. However, at the current rate of implementation by education agencies, most programs will be in full swing by then.

Empirical Education is currently involved in teacher evaluation through Observation Engine: our web-based tool that helps administrators make more reliable observations. See our story about our work with Tulsa Public Schools. This tool, along with our R&D on protocol validation, was initiated as part of the MET project. In our view, the complexity and time-consuming aspects of many of the observation systems that Schmoker criticizes arise from their intended use as supports for professional development. The initial motivation for developing observation frameworks was to provide better feedback and professional development for teachers. Their complexity is driven by the goal of providing detailed, specific feedback. Such systems can become cumbersome when applied to the goal of providing a single score for every teacher representing teaching quality that can be used administratively, for example, for personnel decisions. We suspect that a more streamlined and less labor-intensive evaluation approach could be used to identify the teachers in need of coaching and professional development. That subset of teachers would then receive the more resource-intensive evaluation and training services such as complex, detailed scales, interviews, and coaching sessions.

The other question Schmoker raises is: do these evaluation systems promote better teaching? While waiting for the IES study to be reported, some things can be done. First, look at correlations of the components of the observation rubrics with other measures of teaching such as value-added to student achievement (VAM) scores or student surveys. The idea is to see whether the behaviors valued and promoted by the rubrics are associated with improved achievement. The videos and data collected by the MET project are the basis for tools to do this (see earlier story on our Validation Engine.) But school systems can conduct the same analysis using their own student and teacher data. Second, use quasi-experimental methods to look at the changes in achievement related to the system’s local implementation of evaluation systems. In both cases, many school systems are already collecting very detailed data that can be used to test the validity and effectiveness of their locally adopted approaches.

Empirical is participating in recently awarded five-year REL contracts

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education recently announced the recipients of five-year contracts for each of the 10 Regional Education Laboratories (RELs). We are excited to be part of four strong teams of practitioners and researchers that received the awards.

The original request for proposals in May 2011 called for the new RELs to work closely with alliances of state and local education agencies and other practitioner organizations to build local capacity for research. Considering the close ties between this agenda and Empirical’s core mission we joined the proposal efforts and are now part of winning teams in the West (led by WestEd), Northwest (led by Education Northwest), Midwest (led by the American Institutes for Research (AIR)), and Southwest (led by SEDL) The REL Southwest is currently under a stop work order while ED addresses a dispute concerning its review process. Empirical Education’s history in conducting Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) and in providing technical assistance to education agencies provides a strong foundation for the next five years.

New RFP calls for Building Regional Research Capacity

The US Department of Education (ED) has just released the eagerly anticipated RFP for the next round of the Regional Education Laboratories (RELs). This RFP contains some very interesting departures from how the RELs have been working, which may be of interest especially to state and local educators.

For those unfamiliar with federal government organizations, the RELs are part of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (abbreviated NCEE), which is within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), part of ED. The country is divided up into ten regions, each one served by a REL—so the RFP announced today is really a call for proposals in ten different competitions. The RELs have been in existence for decades but their mission has evolved over time. For example, the previous RFP (about 6 years ago) put a strong emphasis on rigorous research, particularly randomized control trials (RCTs) leading the contractors in each of the 10 regions to greatly expand their capacity, in part by bringing in subcontractors with the requisite technical skills. (Empirical conducted or assisted with RCTs in four of the 10 regions.) The new RFP changes the focus in two essential ways.

First, one of the major tasks is building capacity for research among practitioners. Educators at the state and local levels told ED that they needed more capacity to make use of the longitudinal data systems that the ED has invested in through grants to the states. It is one thing to build the data systems. It is another thing to use the data to generate evidence that can inform decisions about policies and programs. Last month at the conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, Rebecca Maynard, Commissioner of NCEE talked about building a “culture of experimentation” among practitioners and building their capacity for simpler experiments that don’t take so long and are not as expensive as those NCEE has typically contracted for. Her point was that the resulting evidence is more likely to be used if the practitioners are “up close and immediate.”

The second idea found in the RFP for the RELs is that each regional lab should work through “alliances” of state and local agencies. These alliances would cross state boundaries (at least within the region) and would provide an important part of the REL’s research agenda. The idea goes beyond having an advisory panel for the REL that requests answers to questions. The alliances are also expected to build their own capacity to answer these questions using rigorous research methods but applying them cost-effectively and opportunistically. The capacity of the alliances should outlive the support provided by the RELs. If your organization is part of an existing alliance and would like to get better at using and conducting research, there are teams being formed to go after the REL contracts that would be happy to hear from you. (If you’re not sure who to call, let us know and we’ll put you in touch with an appropriate team.)

A Conversation About Building State and Local Research Capacity

John Q Easton, director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), came to New Orleans recently to participate in the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. At one of his stops, he was the featured speaker at a meeting of the Directors of Research and Evaluation (DRE), an organization composed of school district research directors. (DRE is affiliated with AERA and was recently incorporated as a 501©(3)). John started his remarks by pointing out that for much of his career he was a school district research director and felt great affinity to the group. He introduced the directions that IES was taking, especially how it was approaching working with school systems. He spent most of the hour fielding questions and engaging in discussion with the participants. Several interesting points came out of the conversation about roles for the researchers who work for education agencies.

Historically, most IES research grant programs have been aimed at university or other academic researchers. It is noteworthy that even in a program for “Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies,” grants have been awarded only to universities and large research firms. There is no expectation that researchers working for the state or local agency would be involved in the research beyond the implementation of the program. The RFP for the next generation of Regional Education Labs (REL) contracts may help to change that. The new RFP expects the RELs to work closely with education agencies to define their research questions and to assist alliances of state and local agencies in developing their own research capacity.

Members of the audience noted that, as district directors of research, they often spend more time reviewing research proposals from students and professors at local colleges who want to conduct research in their schools, rather than actually answering questions initiated by the district. Funded researchers treat the districts as the “human subjects,” paying incentives to participants and sometimes paying for data services. But the districts seldom participate in defining the research topic, conducting the studies, or benefiting directly from the reported findings. The new mission of the RELs to build local capacity will be a major shift.

Some in the audience pointed out reasons to be skeptical that this REL agenda would be possible. How can we build capacity if research and evaluation departments across the country are being cut? In fact, very little is known about the number of state or district practitioners whose capacity for research and evaluation could be built by applying the REL resources. (Perhaps, a good first research task for the RELs would be to conduct a national survey to measure the existing capacity.)

John made a good point in reply: IES and the RELs have to work with the district leadership—not just the R&E departments—to make this work. The leadership has to have a more analytic view. They need to see the value of having an R&E department that goes beyond test administration, and is able to obtain evidence to support local decisions. By cultivating a research culture in the district, evaluation could be routinely built in to new program implementations from the beginning. The value of the research would be demonstrated in the improvements resulting from informed decisions. Without a district leadership team that values research to find out what works for the district, internal R&E departments will not be seen as an important capacity.

Some in the audience pointed out that in parallel to building a research culture in districts, it will be necessary to build a practitioner culture among researchers. It would be straightforward for IES to require that research grantees and contractors engage the district R&E staff in the actual work, not just review the research plan and sign the FERPA agreement. Practitioners ultimately hold the expertise in how the programs and research can be implemented successfully in the district, thus improving the overall quality and relevance of the research.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

In response to the recent announcements of education stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Empirical Education is now offering assistance to state and local education agencies in building local capacity for rigorous evaluations. Our MeasureResults system helps state and district planners answer questions about the effectiveness of schools and of locally implemented programs. The enhanced analytic capabilities built into the MeasureResults system enables school districts to conduct their own rigorous research with findings relevant to their localized setting, using their existing datasets. Read more about how Empirical Education can work with state and local education agencies to take full advantage of ARRA funding. Also see how we partner with publishers to provide research packages along with their product offerings.

IES Holds its First Workshop on How States and Districts Can Evaluate Their Interventions

Empirical Education staff members participated in a workshop held in Washington sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) on April 24. The goal of the event was to encourage “locally initiated impact evaluations.” The primary presenter, Mark Lipsey of Vanderbilt University, called upon his extensive experience in rigorous evaluations to illustrate and explain the how and why of local evaluations. David Holdzkom of Wake County (NC) provided the perspective from a district where the staff has been conducting rigorous research on their own programs. Empirical Education assisted IES in preparing for the workshop by helping to recruit school district participants and presenters. Of the approximately 150 participants, 40% represented state and local education agencies (the other 60% were from universities, colleges, private agencies, R&D groups, and research companies). An underlying rationale for this workshop was the release of an RFP on this topic. Empirical Education expects to be working with a number of school districts on their responses to this solicitation, which is due October 2, 2008.

EDC Partners with Empirical for Regional Lab in the Northeast

Empirical Education signed on as a partner in the Northeast and the Islands Regional Educational Laboratory, or NEIREL, joining prime contractor Education Development Center of Newton, MA and its other partners, WestEd and AIR. The company’s primary responsibility will be in the area of technical assistance to state and local systems in New England and New York state, as well as the islands–Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Denis Newman, Empirical’s president, commented, “We welcome this opportunity to work with our colleagues at EDC and help them contribute to the research base for their region.” The REL contract is expected to be extended until March 2011.