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Five-year evaluation of Reading Apprenticeship i3 implementation reported at SREE

Empirical Education has released two research reports on the scale-up and impact of Reading Apprenticeship, as implemented under one of the first cohorts of Investing in Innovation (i3) grants. The Reading Apprenticeship Improving Secondary Education (RAISE) project reached approximately 2,800 teachers in five states with a program providing teacher professional development in content literacy in three disciplines: science, history, and English language arts. RAISE supported Empirical Education and our partner, IMPAQ International, in evaluating the innovation through both a randomized control trial encompassing 42 schools and a systematic study of the scale-up of 239 schools. The RCT found significant impact on student achievement in science classes consistent with prior studies. Mean impact across subjects, while positive, did not reach the .05 level of significance. The scale-up study found evidence that the strategy of building cross-disciplinary teacher teams within the school is associated with growth and sustainability of the program. Both sides of the evaluation were presented at the annual conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, March 6-8, 2016 in Washington DC. Cheri Fancsali (formerly of IMPAQ, now at Research Alliance for NYC Schools) presented results of the RCT. Denis Newman (Empirical) presented a comparison of RAISE as instantiated in the RCT and scale-up contexts.

You can access the reports and research summaries from the studies using the links below.
RAISE RCT research report
RAISE RCT research summary
RAISE Scale-up research report
RAISE Scale-up research summary

2016-03-09

Meeting Long-time Friends and New Partners at #i3PD2015

Empirical sent five staff members to the Invest in Innovation (i3) Project Director’s meeting in Washington to support the five i3 evaluations we are currently conducting. Denis Newman, Andrew Jaciw, Jenna Zacamy, Megan Toby and Adam Schellinger. The meetings were filled with formal and informal meetings with partners, members of the i3 technical assistance teams, and old friends. Projects we are currently evaluating are RAISE, Aspire Public Schools, iRAISE, Making Sense of Science, and CREATE. We are currently at work on proposals for the 2016 round of awards.

2015-06-10
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