CPRE Working Papers

Search results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 31
  • Publication
    Pathways for Analyzing and Responding to Student Work for Formative Assessment: The Role of Teachers’ Goals for Student Learning
    (2019-07-26) Ebby, Caroline Brayer; Remillard, Janine; D'Olier, Jordan H
    This study explored how teachers interpreted and responded to their own student work during the process of formative assessment. The study involved a purposefully selected sample of 32 teachers in grades K-5 who had been trained by the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) to use learning progressions to analyze and respond to evidence in student work. Since formative assessment is fundamentally an interpretive process, involving continually eliciting and interpreting evidence of student thinking from student work in order to inform teaching and learning (Black & Wiliam, 2009), the study analyzed data collected through semi-structured interviews. The study found variations in the way teachers make sense of their student work for formative assessment that were related to their underlying goals for student learning. Teachers with an achievement orientation tended to focus on performance goals: giving formative assessment items to gauge student performance on problems that reflected what had recently been taught and focused on singular or multiple components of performance to make a binary judgment (i.e. students who “get it or don’t get it”). Teachers with a learning orientation gave items to learn more about what students were able to do on different types of problems and focused on student strategies as an indicator of underlying understanding and development. These orientations also had implications for the instructional response teachers developed; as teachers looked beyond surface features of student work and binary distinctions, they developed more differentiated responses that built on students’ knowledge and their ability to develop more sophisticated understanding. In between these two extremes, we found three categories of hybrid approaches to formative assessment, demonstrating a push-and-pull between achievement and learning orientations at different decision points during the steps of the formative assessment process. Those decision points – the teachers’ purpose in giving an item, the evidence focused on, the interpretive framework used to analyze the evidence, and the focus of the instructional responses – offer multiple footholds in the formative assessment process where teachers can begin to try out new approaches that reflect a shift in orientation to student learning. The study shows that using formative assessment is not simply a matter of taking up new practices and using new tools. The variations in understanding and use of the ideas that were offered in professional development, as reflected in teachers’ actual practices, suggests that it is important to provide opportunities for sustained learning and supported use over time.
  • Publication
    Child labor activities and schooling decisions in rural Côte d'Ivoire
    (Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2023) Samuel Kembou
    We leverage data on 1,857 families in 140 rural cocoa-growing communities of Côte d'Ivoire to report on child work activities and schooling decisions. We distinguish between unpaid domestic labor and unpaid agricultural child labor activities reported by children in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that more than 80% of children participate in at least one household work activity and more than 50% in at least one agricultural work activity, with differences between boys and girls. Older boys performed more unpaid agricultural work activities, and girls performed more domestic work activities. Thirty-five percent of children were engaged in unpaid agricultural child labor, a rate similar to a national estimate of child labor in cocoa-growing communities of Côte d’Ivoire in 2018/19. Agricultural child labor and schooling are predicted by a child’s age and gender, household factors such as parental age, family size, multidimensional poverty, and community factors, especially community-level child labor rates. Social protection and education programs targeting older boys could improve their schooling outcomes and reduce agricultural child labor. Likewise, addressing acute poverty with multifaceted programs reducing consumption-based poverty, poor parental education, and improving community infrastructures could reduce child labor.
  • Publication
    Evaluation of the GE Foundation-Supported Demonstration Schools Initiative in Milwaukee Public Schools, SY 2012-2013
    (2013-12-01) Sam, Cecile; Supovitz, Jonathan A; Darfler, Anne; Newman, Bobbi; Hall, Daniella
    The Milwaukee Public School district (MPS) Demonstration Schools Initiative provided intensive support to 10 MPS elementary and middle schools implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in mathematics and English language arts. This evaluation report was designed to answer two overarching questions: How did MPS implement the Demonstration Schools Initiative in Year One, and what factors shaped the implementation? Is there evidence of teachers' adoption of the instructional shifts associated with the CCSS? This evaluation found that teachers in the Demonstration Schools ended the 2012-2013 school year with significantly higher CCSS knowledge in both mathematics and English language arts than did teachers in the comparison schools.
  • Publication
    From the Inside In: An Examination of Common Core Knowledge & Communication in Schools
    (2014-03-01) Supovitz, Jonathan A; Fink, Ryan; Newman, Bobbi
    In this report, CPRE researchers explore how Common Core knowledge and influence are distributed inside of schools and how these configurations may help teachers to engage with the Common Core and influence their understanding and implementation. To do so, we used a mixed-method approach to examine knowledge and influence in eight schools, including five elementary schools and three middle schools. Our central method was a survey of knowledge and influence of all faculty members in a sample of eight schools. These data are supplemented with interview data from a purposeful sample of teachers and administrators in the eight schools. Sponsored by the General Electric Foundation, which also provides support to New York City through its Developing FuturesTM in Education Program, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) at the University of Pennsylvania has examined Common Core implementation in New York City in a series of studies. In 2013 CPRE released the findings of two investigations, one which described how the district constructed the 2011-12 Citywide Instructional Expectations (CIEs) for teachers, which were a small number of assignments for school faculties to complete during the school year to facilitate their engagement with the new Common Core (Supovitz, 2013). The second report examined how a diverse sample of 16 schools understood and implemented these CIEs and how their choices influenced their levels of engagement (Goldsworthy, Supovitz, & Riggan, 2013). A third report is a companion to the current report, focusing on teacher collaboration as a means of cultivating and transferring knowledge about the Common Core.
  • Publication
    Building District Capacity for System-Wide Instructional Improvement in Stamford Public Schools
    (2013-12-01) Riggan, Matthew; Fink, Ryan
    This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education’s (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation’s (GEF) Developing FuturesTM in Education program in Stamford Public Schools (SPS). The purpose was to closely analyze the district’s capacity to support system-wide instructional improvement. To understand how SPS, one of the four Developing FuturesTM districts that were examined, built capacity for system-wide instructional improvement, our study focused on a single, overarching question: to what extent has SPS central office adopted and institutionalized the seven core principles of Developing FuturesTM?
  • Publication
    The Bubble Bursts: The 2015 Opt-Out Movement in New Jersey
    (2016-09-01) Supovitz, Jonathan A; Stephens, Francine; Kubelka, Julie; McGuinn, Patrick; Ingersoll, Hannah
    The Bubble Bursts: The 2015 Opt-Out Movement in New Jersey analyzes the scope, factors, and context of the opt-out movement that occurred in New Jersey in the spring of 2015. Using test participation data released in February 2016 by the New Jersey Department of Education, we found that approximately 135,000 students did not take the state assessment in the spring of 2015. Depending on how it was calculated, this represented between 11-19% of the population of students eligible for testing in grades 3 to 11 in the state. There was also a positive correlation between higher district opt-out rates and wealthier districts. We found that several factors contributed to these trends. Predominant amongst these were an accumulated skepticism with high stakes testing in general and the new PARCC assessment in particular, concerns from the Common Core State Standards rollout, teacher union opposition to premature teacher accountability, and confusion in the messages of state policymakers about graduation requirements. These explanatory factors were based upon interviews with over 30 state policymakers, professional education association representatives, advocacy group leaders, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students.
  • Publication
    An Urban Myth? New Evidence of Equity, Adequacy and the Efficiency of Educational Resources
    (2014-12-01) Steinberg, Matthew; Quinn, Rand
    In this article, we offer an empirical rejoinder to the oft-told story that large urban districts, like Philadelphia, are inefficient. We situate our study during the very short period in Pennsylvania’s recent history when efforts were dedicated to addressing the inequitable distribution of resources through a fair funding formula and to increasing the amount of resources available for education spending. Even in the presence of a funding formula, school districts like Philadelphia (SDP) with its large percentage of low-income students and English language learners were disproportionately burdened. Unsurprisingly, the SDP, like many districts across the nation, did not receive sufficient resources to educate its students. However, we find that contrary to conventional wisdom, SDP did more per pupil with the resources at its disposal than the average peer district in terms of student poverty and achievement.
  • Publication
    The Linking Study: An Experiment to Strengthen Teachers' Engagement With Data on Teaching and Learning
    (2013-04-01) Supovitz, Jonathan A
    In this AERA 2013 paper, Dr. Jonathan Supovitz investigates what it means for teachers to fruitfully use data to enhance the teaching and learning process. Informed by research on the challenges teachers face to use data meaningfully, and clues from the rich literature on formative assessment, this paper reports on the design and effects of an intervention designed to help teachers connect data on their teaching with data on the learning of their students for the purpose of informing subsequent instruction which leads to better student outcomes. The hypothesis of this study, therefore, is that while examining data may be useful, the real value of data use is to examine the connection between data points – in this case the instructional choices that teachers make and the learning outcomes of students. Thus, ‘data use’ in this study means encouraging and facilitating teachers’ analytical experiences of linking data on teaching to data on the learning of their students.
  • Publication
    The Impact of Formal Teacher Leadership Programs on Teachers’ Instructional Practices
    (2021-04-28) Supovitz, Jonathan A; Comstock, Meghan
    Teacher leadership is a growing reform in the United States, with almost 300 active programs that are preparing, positioning, and/or rewarding teacher leaders (Berg et al., 2019). Despite this plethora of activity, there is relatively little empirical research on the influence of teacher leadership on teacher practice. This study adds to the research base on how teacher leaders influence instruction. The study focuses on the instructional influence of teacher leaders in formal teacher leadership programs in four districts in three American states. Although the programs had different emphases and structures, all four provided training, ongoing support, and formal school positions for teacher leaders, who were charged with working with teachers to support instructional improvement. Using survey data from approximately 1,050 teachers in 45 schools in the four districts and interview data from a subset of schools, we examined the relationship between the activities of teacher leaders and teacher reports of teacher leader influence and changes in instruction. The findings indicate that teachers who report being influenced by their teacher leader also report more frequently planning with their teacher leader, engaging in professional learning activities with their teacher leader, and participating in observations and feedback with their teacher leader. Additionally, higher levels of teacher leader influence are associated with teacher reports of change in instructional practice.
  • Publication
    Learning in the Time of a Pandemic and Implications for Returning to School: Effects of COVID-19 in Ghana
    (2021-08-01) Wolf, Sharon; Aurino, Elisabetta; Suntheimer, Noelle; Avornyo, Esinam; Tsinigo, Edward; Jordan, Jasmine; Samanhyia, Soloman; Aber, J. Lawrence; Behrman, Jere R.
    The Covid-19 pandemic led to school closures all over the world, leaving children across diverse contexts without formal education for nearly a year. Remote-learning programs were designed and rapidly implemented to promote learning continuity throughout the crisis. There were inequalities in who was able to access remote-learning during school closures, though little systematic evidence documenting these gaps exists, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we surveyed 1,844 children in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, as well as their caregivers and teachers, regarding their engagement in remote learning, literacy and math test scores, and household economic hardships. We document inequalities in access to and engagement in remote-learning activities during the ten months in 2020 in which schools were closed in Ghana. Specifically, children in private schools and children in higher-socioeconomic status households engaged in remote-learning at higher rates and received more support from their schools and caregivers. Further, controlling for demographic characteristics and pre-pandemic learning outcomes, we document gaps in children’s literacy and math test scores, with food insecure and low-SES children, as well as children enrolled in public schools before the pandemic, performing significantly worse than their peers (0.2-0.3 SD gap). Finally, children in households that experienced more economic hardships during the pandemic engaged in fewer remote learning activities and had lower literacy and numeracy assessment scores. The findings speak to the potential consequences of increased inequalities due to the pandemic as schools re-open in Ghana and around the world and provide insight into how schools may address these inequalities as children return to the classroom.