• | Phys.org
    High school seniors who receive texted reminders—or "nudges"—from their school counselors are 17 percent more likely to complete the college financial aid application process and 8 percent more likely to enroll in college directly after graduating than their peers who are not nudged, according to a new study published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.
  • | Education Next

    While the idea of making any prediction gives me the shivers (who likes to be wrong?), making predictions about NAEP results seems like a relatively safe endeavor. The best prediction about the NEAP results would perennially be, “yeah, so it’s going to look a lot like last year,” because, inevitably it does. Sure, some states or subgroups rise a bit and some fall, but overall, the country is not making the types of rapid increases in student learning that anyone would find satisfying.

    That said, if I take off my glasses and squint hard at these tea leaves, I’m willing to make two small predictions.

  • | The Brown Daily Herald
    The Annenberg Institute will work to better inform the PPSD’s decision-making process by researching issues selected by the district, RIDE and other local partners, said Ellen Viruleg, managing director of the Annenberg Institute, at the BUCC meeting. When a research center hopes to aid a community, it is important to prioritize “following the lead of your (community) partners,” Viruleg added.
  • | The Brown Daily Herald

    The University’s Department of Education will decide which schools the MAT program will partner with, said Director of the Annenberg Institute Susanna Loeb. The department began reaching out to schools this summer and site visits are currently underway, Joutz said.

    Loeb added that the department is likely to partner with two charter schools, Blackstone Academy and Paul Cuffee School, and is also “in conversations” with Hope High School. Professor Sarah Leibel, director of Teacher Education, will spearhead the efforts. Leibel did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    “We’re talking to many of these schools and seeing who would really like us as partners and who we could support best,” Loeb said.

  • | Providence Journal
    “We forget that a lot of middle-and upper-class students went through a lot of test prep,” said Ken Wong, director of urban education at Brown University. “When they are sitting in the test room, they already know what kinds of tasks they are being asked to do. We need to think about building support like that in public schools. “On the other hand, students know that they are not being held accountable when they take the SAT,” he said of Rhode Island. “It’s not a high-stakes test for them. It’s important for the districts and the commissioner to communicate why this is important, that it’s clearly connected to college and career readiness.”
  • | The Brown Daily Herald

    Last year in a shiny glass room one floor above the Brown Bookstore, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform hosted an event: “Advancing Equity through Research-Practice Partnerships.” The Institute brought in Ruth Lopez Turley, founder of the Houston Education Research Consortium, to present on the power of research grounded in community partnerships — a worthy and pertinent topic.

    However, one central irony stood out as the elephant in the room: The Annenberg Institute had just undergone a push in the opposite direction.

    The Annenberg Institute should heed Turley’s call and focus their research on the Providence community.

  • | NBER Digest

    The challenges of the workweek make it difficult for parents to make effective use of tips sent by text on weekdays.

    "Point out the first letter in your child's name in magazines, on signs and at the store. Have your child try. Make it a game. Who can find the most?"

    That tip is an example of parenting advice offered by an educational program that sends text messages to parents of preschoolers. The program has proven effective at boosting children's literacy and math skills.

  • | Annenberg Institute at Brown University
  • | Annenberg Institute at Brown University
  • | Detroit Free Press
    "So the gap is about 30 million words during the course of four to five years, when the child is in development," said Kenneth Wong, a professor and director of the Urban Education Institute at Brown University, which has been studying the results of the Providence Talks program. "That's an enormous gap. The question is, what can we do about that challenge so that they can come to school prepared?"
  • | National Council on Teacher Quality

    We can all agree that teachers contribute in many ways to students' lives. But how should we measure those contributions? Answers are all over the map, from test-based evidence of teachers' contribution to student learning to observers' perceptions of how well they build rapport with their students. Is there some middle ground where we can measure something beyond test scores?

    An updated working paper by Jing Liu and Susanna Loeb (of Brown University) finds a plausible way to quantify at least one key contribution made by teachers: getting students to show up to class. They refer to this as "attendance VAM," a measure of teachers' individual effect on student attendance, with similar controls built into the model as the more familiar, learning-based VAM.

  • | Annenberg Institute at Brown University