School & District Management

Research Center to Scour States’ Data Troves

By Debra Viadero — July 24, 2006 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

reporter’s notebook

The newly created Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, or CALDER, is being launched with a five-year, $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

The job of the center, which the Urban Institute announced last week, is to tap into the trove of statistics that states are amassing through new data-collection systems that use unique “identifier” numbers so that students—and teachers—can be tracked anonymously over time as they move from classroom to classroom or district to district.

Center researchers intend to focus their efforts for now on studying issues related to teacher quality—who teaches what kinds of students, what determines quality, and how hiring, compensation, and retention policies affect student achievement.

Prodded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, most states are building more-comprehensive databases than they had in the past so that they can track student achievement over time.

The center, though, will harvest data from six states—Florida, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington—that have either long-established systems or student populations that are particularly large or diverse.

“It’s an attempt to get all the databases sort of talking to each other,” said Jane Hannaway, the project’s principal investigator and the director of the education policy center at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in the nation’s capital. If researchers learn that a new policy or practice leads to improved student learning in one state, for instance, they can immediately try to replicate that finding in other states with the same policy in place, Ms. Hannaway added.

To carry out its work, CALDER will rely on established scholars from the six universities in the consortium. Most of them have already plumbed the state databases in their own research on teacher-related issues.

Established Scholars

Among those researchers are: David N. Figlio, an economics professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville; Dan D. Goldhaber, a research associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle; Eric A. Hanushek, the chairman of the Texas Schools Project at the University of Texas at Dallas and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, in California; Helen F. Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke University in Durham, N.C.; Susanna Loeb, an associate professor of education at Stanford; and Michael Podgursky, an economics professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The center’s collective database will not be open to researchers outside the consortium, Ms. Hannaway said. That’s in part because state education officials, in an effort to comply with a federal law designed to protect students’ privacy, have placed restrictions on access to the data. (“Scholars Cite Privacy Law as Obstacle,” Jan. 18, 2006.)

CALDER is among five new federal research-and-development centers that the Department of Education is poised to announce this summer, according to agency officials. A spokesman for the department was unable to provide information on grant awards for the other centers last week.

Ms. Hannaway said the longitudinal-data center would be part of a new center on state and local policy with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. She said the Nashville center would focus on studying performance incentives in education.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the July 26, 2006 edition of Education Week as Research Center to Scour States’ Data Troves

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
AI in Education: Empowering Educators to Tap into the Promise and Steer Clear of Peril
Explore the transformative potential of AI in education and learn how to harness its power to improve student outcomes.
Content provided by Panorama Education
English Learners Webinar Family and Community Engagement: Best Practices for English Learners
Strengthening the bond between schools and families is key to the success of English learners. Learn how to enhance family engagement and support student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
How an Inquiry-Based Approach Transforms Math Learning
Transform math learning with an approach that empowers students to become active, engaged learners.
Content provided by MIND Education

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Opinion There’s a Stunning Oversight in CTE: Careers in Education
Teachers are a core part of our workforce—but you wouldn’t know it to look at CTE programs. School leaders must start growing their own.
5 min read
A teenager contemplates his career path. Career Technical Education.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Whitepaper
Future-Driven Leadership: Five Goals for Dynamic School Leaders in 2024
This guide offers practical strategies for district leaders to foster innovation, empower staff, support wellness, amplify student voices...
Content provided by BookNook
School & District Management What the Research Says Four Ways to Stop Teacher Turnover From Hamstringing School Improvement
Staffing instability can unravel the social fabric of schools, experts say, unless leaders work to keep connections strong.
6 min read
Woman of color exiting out of a door.
iStock/Getty Images Plus
School & District Management Spooked by Halloween, Some Schools Ban Costumes—But Not Without Pushback
Schools are tweaking Halloween traditions to make them more inclusive to all students.
4 min read
A group of elementary school kids sitting on a curb dressed in their Halloween costumes.
iStock/Getty