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WCER Today

October 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

Feature Story: Evaluating a Core Reading Program

Research Notes:

• Measuring Effects of Financial Aid Policies
• National Conference for Human Capital Management
• School Leadership for Student Achievement
• New Findings in Differentiated Instruction

Feature Story

Evaluating a Core Reading Program

Recent research by UW-Madison education professor Geoffrey Borman indicates the average student from an Open Court Reading (OCR) classroom outperformed nearly 58% of the students in classrooms that were not assigned to OCR. OCR is a phonics-based K–6 curriculum grounded in research-based practices.

Overall, students from OCR classrooms scored from 12% to 19% of 1 standard deviation higher on reading assessments.

If you’re a fourth-grader you could be the victim of an achievement gap equivalent to nearly 3 years of learning, depending on whether you are African-American, Hispanic, White, poor, or non-poor (U.S. Department of Education, 2005).

Despite many efforts to close this gap, early elementary literacy instruction and learning still fails many of America’s poor and minority students.

Educators are trying. But they can’t find all they need in the professional literature on core reading programs. UW–Madison education professor Geoffrey Bormann finds that current published research offers few studies that examine the impact of these programs on children’s reading skills.

To help remedy this shortcoming, Bormann and colleagues Maritza Dowling and Carrie Schneck evaluated and reported on one such program, Open Court Reading (OCR). OCR is a phonics-based K–6 curriculum grounded in research-based practices. It has been widely used since the 1960s.

But despite its widespread use, OCR had not been evaluated rigorously. Bormann and Dowling initiated a study to answer two questions:

• Is it possible or desirable to use randomized field trials to measure widely used core reading programs? and,
• How effective is OCR in particular?

Read the full article here.

Research Notes

Measuring Effects of Financial Aid Policies

The Wisconsin Scholars Grant (WSG) targets graduates of Wisconsin public high schools who are enrolled at any of the 2-year or 4-year public colleges statewide and who receive Pell Grant money as part of their aid package.  Sara Goldrick-Rab and Douglas Harris are measuring the impact of such need-based financial aid on these students’ success in college. This first randomized trial will examine whether, how, and under what circumstances financial aid can increase rates of postsecondary attainment among low-income college students. The project will produce findings that can be generalized to low-income populations in other states and regions.

National Conference for Human Capital Management

Arne Duncan, Tim Pawlenty, and Ted Strickland are among the speakers invited and scheduled to speak at the Strategic Management of Human Capital in Education conference, Nov. 3-4 in Washington, DC. Keynote presenters and panels will focus on leading edge approaches to talent and human capital management practices in places throughout the country, and performance management strategies and tools used in districts and organizations. District teams from Denver, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Austin and Baltimore will present comprehensive district and state practices. The agenda is here and registration information is here.

School Leadership for Student Achievement

The  influence of principal leadership on student achievement works indirectly. What specifically are the mediating factors? Eric Camburn and Douglas Harris are pursuing four related research questions: (a) how schools and principals influence student achievement; (b) the effects of specific leadership practices on school and principal value added; (c) how teacher hiring and retention effect student achievement; and (d) how leadership and mediating factors vary across school contexts. This study uses surveys and statewide data to determine whether certain principals are more likely to hire and retain high value-added teachers.

New Findings in Differentiated Instruction

Efforts to change the culture of teaching and learning in STEM departments should focus on illuminating and then shifting faculty's cultural schema for teaching and learning. A recent analysis by Matthew Hora and Susan Millar suggests that reshaping organizational culture may require comprehensive efforts to change the structural, social, and symbolic milieu in which individuals operate. Cultural change also requires addressing individuals’ habits of mind. To accomplish this, leaders are encouraged to (a) conduct regular institutional assessments prior to program planning, (b) design neutral spaces in which different groups may interact, (c) recruit a skilled culture-broker when working with interdisciplinary groups, (d) marshal existing resources and reform projects to collectively target key leverage points, and (e) focus on developing cohorts of STEM educators in specific departments. More here.

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Part of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the 44-year-old Wisconsin Center for Education Research receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and private foundations. http://www.wcer.wisc.edu

Contact the editor: pbaker@wisc.edu