We take capacity building seriously with our clients, but now its our turn! We are so happy to welcome three new members of the Arroyo Research Services team: Ariana Vasquez, Michelle Kennedy, and Martha Chavez. Together they not only increase our ability to meet the needs of our clients and partners, but they are bringing…
When asked publicly or privately about high stakes assessments for teachers and schools, we always say the same thing: don’t go there. Using value-added models based of student test scores to reward or punish teachers misdiagnoses educator motivation, guides educators away from good assessment practices, and unnecessarily exposes them to technical and human testing uncertainties….
Our past two posts covered both the “why” of measuring implementation and some of the common challenges to doing so. In this third and final post, we’ll look at what is most useful to measure. Implementation measures are particular to each program and should take into account the specific actions expected of program participants: who…
In our last post, we shared four reasons why educators should be measuring implementation: here we’ll look at four common challenges to strong implementation measurement. 1. Differential definitions. What happens when different units of your program operate with different working definitions of a measure? Take tutoring, for example, in a multi-site program, where each site…
Understanding implementation is critical to both program improvement and program evaluation. But measuring implementation is typically undervalued and often overlooked. This post is one of three in a series that focuses on measuring implementation when evaluating educational programs. “Fidelity of implementation” ranks next to “scientifically based research” on our list of terms thrown about casually,…
U.S. school systems are crafting new approaches to desegregation in response to increasing evidence of growing racial isolation and strong evidence of the value of integration. Assuring the success of these initiatives, including creating and sustaining community support, requires clear thinking about measurement and evaluation. And while translating the rich body of integration-related social science…
The Department of Defense recently announced the 2016 round of Grants to Military-Connected Local Educational Agencies for Academic and Support Programs (MCASP), designed to support military-connected schools. These have been important programs for schools that serve military families and students, and our evaluations of MCASP programs have shown them to be effective. If your school or…
Data mapping is about more than key points; it’s about the many sources of data that can help predict future outcomes. For a project in Clark County Public Schools, we sought a way to show how various data sources across the district could be useful in informing progress toward their strategic objective of producing graduates who are “Ready by Exit.”…
After six years and over $180 million, Hillsborough County plans to move beyond a teacher evaluation system developed with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to a more data driven system of educator support emblematic of strategies advanced by Learning Forward. The move was announced in an email from Superintendent Jeff Eakins to the more than 260 Peer…
Together with Drs. Raymond Barclay and Barbara Weschke, Managing Director Kirk Vandersall recently released results from an Arroyo Research Services study of online teacher education in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks published by the Online Learning Consortium (formerly the Sloan Consortium). The study presents findings from an investigation of the impact of teachers who graduated from a…