Pennsylvania’s Early Childhood Data Systems: History, Uses & Opportunities

This report provides a comprehensive summary of Pennsylvania’s efforts to develop and integrate early childhood data systems. There is evidence that Pennsylvania’s data systems have created efficiencies and cost savings, and have enabled quality improvements in ways that otherwise would not have been possible. Although progress has been made, PA is still developing strategies for data use and has many opportunities to leverage existing data to further inform strategic investments, drive program integrity, guide supports for early childhood professionals, and support program accountability. This report outlines the history, uses and opportunities for Pennsylvania after ten years of system work

Dexterity, Deliberateness, And Disposition: An Investigation of Instructional Strength for Early Literacy

This mixed-methods study examines the relationship between an emergent conceptualization of teachers’ instructional strength and their students’ progress in early literacy. The conceptualization includes three components: a teacher’s deliberateness, their instructional dexterity, and a set of teacher dispositions that catalyse and maximize these attributes. Based on the results of qualitative inquiry, the authors developed a measure of individual teachers’ instructional strength according to this conceptualization. Regression analysis reveals that all three components are significant predictors of students’ growth in early literacy. The study includes 318 teachers and 1,181 students from 227 schools across the country

The i3 Validation of SunBay Digital Mathematics

Decades of research have emphasized the need for engaging, accessible ways to help students learn fundamental mathematical concepts. Research also shows that teacher beliefs about teaching and learning have an outsized influence on the quality and effectiveness of curricular interventions. This article reports results of an independent evaluation of the i3 implementation of SunBay Digital Mathematics, a middle-school math intervention, and examines the program’s impacts on both student progress and teachers’ beliefs about math instruction. Prior studies have demonstrated the efficacy of SunBay Math for students of varied levels of prior achievement. This independent evaluation included a randomized controlled trial in 60 Florida middle schools during the 2015-16 school year and a mixed-methods implementation study. No impact on student achievement was observed overall; however, the evaluation did reveal positive impacts on teachers’ classroom practices and beliefs about the use of technology in math instruction. Inadequate implementation of instructional units and lack of impact on teachers for targeted beliefs about math instruction likely contributed to lack of overall program effects

ECDataWorks Programmatic Use Case for the Development of an Analytic Tool

This brief provides an overview of programmatic use cases for state early childhood data, the benefits for state leaders and community stakeholders, and a sample template

Developing Measures of Teacher and Student Understanding in Relation to Learning Trajectories

This paper describes the impact of the OGAP intervention on teachers’ ability to use formative assessment data for instructional decision making. We measured this construct both before and after one and two years of the intervention with an instrument developed to measure teacher knowledge of student thinking in the activity of looking at and responding to student work. We begin with an overview of the design and development of the TASK instrument, and then present quantitative and qualitative findings on the impact on teacher responses

ECDataWorks Data Story Activity Guide

Learning from data is not easy. Developing data stories can support data use among stakeholders at the state and local levels. This resource is intended to support stakeholders working in small groups to develop data stories requiring integrated early childhood data, but can support planning for the use of other types of data as well. The goal of this activity is to engage stakeholders and build a shared understanding of data needs and uses through facilitated conversations

School Leadership, Teachers’ Roles in School Decisionmaking, and Student Achievement

This working paper summarizes the results of a study of leadership in elementary and secondary schools. The study focused in particular on instructional leadership – the extent to which school leaders focus on the core activities of teaching and learning – and teacher leadership – the extent to which teachers have input into school decision-making. This paper is drawn from the full report of the study, entitled School Leadership Counts (Ingersoll, Dougherty and Sirinides 2017), available at www.newteachercenter.org