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The study examined the effect of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) on social-emotional competencies of fifth and sixth graders in the 2018-19 academic year in Spokane, Washington. The study used archival data and quasi-experimental design with matching to compare social-emotional competencies of students taught by NBCTs and students taught by non-NBCTs. The study examined 10 social-emotional competencies. The results suggest that NBCTs are significantly more effective than non-NBCTs at facilitating students' self-efficacy approximately 2 months after the start of the school year (effect size = 0.21). Results for self-management are in the same direction (effect size = 0.10), however not statistically significant. Findings for the remaining eight social-emotional competencies are not statistically significant, and the effect sizes are small. The results also suggest that NBCTs are effective at developing social-emotional competencies for students who are native English speakers for two social-emotional measures: self-efficacy (effect size = 0.23) and social awareness (effect size = 0.16). The study is the first attempt to rigorously examine the effect of NBCTs on students' social-emotional competencies. Although the evidence is encouraging, additional rigorous research is needed to make confident conclusions, particularly for students who are English language learners and from different racial/ethnic subgroups because of the small number of these students in the current study. [This study was funded by the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant.]

This is the final report of a large-scale independent evaluation of the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) model in ninth grade in eleven high schools in Maine, California, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Texas. This sample of schools included large and small schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas, serving students from a wide range of demographic and socio-economic backgrounds. Funded with a validation grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program and carried out by researchers at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), this evaluation used random assignment of ninth-grade students to BARR and control conditions to estimate the impacts of the BARR model after one year. The evaluation also assessed the fidelity of implementation of BARR in the eleven study schools and identified barriers to and facilitators of successful implementation. The evaluation focused on several teacher- and student-level outcomes. The teacher outcomes included measures of teacher collaboration, and use of data, among others. The academic outcomes included course failure, students' grade point average (GPA), and performance on the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) standardized reading and mathematics assessments. Student-reported experiences included measures of supportive relationships, perceptions of teachers' expectations of them, student engagement, and others. In addition to these outcomes, the report includes impact estimates for attendance, suspensions, and persistence into 10th grade. [This report was written with Brenna O'Brien, Cheryl Graczewski, So Jung Park, Feng Liu, Ethan Adelman-Sil, Lynn Hu.]

The study examined the effect of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in instructional leadership roles, operationalized as mentors to novice teachers, on (a) classroom practices of mentored novice teachers in Grades K-12 and (b) student achievement of mentored teachers' students in Grades 4-8. The study compared outcomes between NBCT mentors and non-NBCT mentors. The study examined the effect of NBCT mentors after one academic year and was conducted in San Francisco Unified School District. Using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, we examined novice teachers' classroom practices on the domains of Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, Instructional Support, and across all three domains. The results did not reach statistical significance, but the effect sizes for Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and a global measure across all domains suggest meaningful differences between classroom practices of novice teachers mentored by NBCTs and non-NBCTs. These effect sizes were 0.28, 0.28, and 0.21 standard deviations, respectively. The effect size for the domain of Instructional Support was near zero at -0.06 standard deviations. Our sample size for the analysis of classroom practices did not have sufficient power to estimate differences at a statistically significant level. We examined student achievement using the state's standardized test scores in mathematics and English language arts. Our achievement measure includes either subject: That is, we did not estimate effects separately for mathematics and English language arts. The results suggest that students taught by teachers mentored by NBCTs had a higher level of achievement than students mentored by non-NBCTs. The difference was statistically significant at a p value of 0.05, and the effect size was meaningful at 0.18 standard deviations. Small sample sizes and low statistical power prevent us from making confident conclusions about the effect of NBCTs in instructional leadership roles on classroom practices of supported teachers and student achievement. However, the evidence is encouraging and warrants additional rigorous research on the impact of NBCTs as instructional leaders.

The Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach to education that aims to improve achievement for all students by improving a school's effectiveness at building relationships, leveraging real-time student data, and capitalizing on the strengths of each student. The U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program provided the BARR program developers with a validation grant that provided funding to bring the BARR model to more high schools around the country. In addition, the validation grant required and funded an independent evaluation of the impact of the BARR model on student outcomes. The impact evaluation of the BARR model is a randomized controlled trial (RCT), which is the most rigorous research design for estimating the impact of a program. Individual ninth-grade students in the 11 high schools in the evaluation were randomly assigned to implement the BARR model and receive supports from the providers or to not implement the BARR model. American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting this evaluation in 11 high schools, divided into three annual cohorts. This report presents preliminary findings for the first two of these cohorts. It presents impact findings from the first and second cohorts of schools to implement the study and the BARR model, in the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 academic years.

Schools in the Internationals Network for Public Schools (Internationals) are public middle schools, high schools, and academies (i.e., schools within schools) that serve secondary English language learners (ELLs)--in particular, ELLs who have been enrolled in U.S. schools for fewer than 4 years and who are at the lowest levels of English proficiency. With funding from a 5-year Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement, Internationals received an opportunity to implement key components of its model in comprehensive high schools that serve both ELLs and non-ELLs. Internationals designed an intervention--Project RISE (Realizing Instructional Supports for English Language Learners)--that aimed to improve the educational outcomes of ELLs in Grades 9-12 in two schools by changing teachers' instructional practices and several key structures in which students and teachers are organized. The American Institutes for Research (AIR), an external evaluator of Project RISE, was charged with providing both a formative evaluation and an impact evaluation. The purpose of this document is to summarize the findings of formative and impact evaluations of Project RISE. First, the report presents the results of the formative evaluation accumulated during the 4-year evaluation period while the project was being implemented. Then the report presents the results of the impact evaluation conducted after Project RISE was completed.

Hispanic students continue to be underrepresented among employees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the United States. Among students who decide to major in a postsecondary STEM field, Hispanic students persist at lower rates than non-Hispanic White students (Higher Education Research Institute, 2010). Concern about underrepresentation of Hispanic individuals in STEM majors and fields is particularly acute in Texas, where Hispanic students represent 51 percent of the K-12 student body. This policy brief describes a full report that was a series of investigations to identify indicators of STEM-related postsecondary outcomes specifically for Hispanic students in Texas. Identifying academic indicators that may differ specifically for Hispanic students relative to other racial/ethnic groups could help educators and policymakers understand the reasons for lower levels of attaining STEM postsecondary outcomes among Hispanic students. The study addresses the following research questions: (1) Which high school academic indicators predict whether Texas high school graduates will enroll, persist, or complete a degree in a STEM field? and (2) Do high school academic indicators of postsecondary outcomes function differently for Hispanic students (of any racial group) than for non-Hispanic White students? [For the full report, "Associations between Predictive Indicators and Postsecondary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Success among Hispanic Students in Texas. REL 2018-279," see ED577564.]

Nationwide, Hispanic students continue to be underrepresented among students who complete a four-year degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016) and among workers in STEM fields. This discrepancy is a concern, especially in light of the projected growth in employment in STEM fields and in light of the fact that wages for jobs in STEM fields are 26 percent higher on average than wages for jobs in non-STEM fields. Concern is particularly acute in Texas, where Hispanic students account for 51 percent of the K-12 student population. The Texas Hispanic STEM Research Alliance, made up of representatives from Regional Education Service Centers, school districts, postsecondary institutions, and state education agencies, partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest on a series of studies of predictors of postsecondary STEM success (defined as enrolling in, persisting in, or completing a postsecondary STEM major or degree) for Hispanic students in Texas. The first study reviewed the research literature to identify indicators (malleable factors that can be measured in K-12 settings) that predict students' postsecondary STEM success. Among the indicators identified were the number of math courses taken, the number of science courses taken, the level of math or science courses taken, interest or confidence in STEM, achievement in middle school and high school (for example, grade point average and scores on standardized math and science assessment tests), and SAT and ACT math scores. This report presents the findings of the second study, which examined the associations between some of the indicators identified in the first study and postsecondary STEM success among Texas students. The current study used data on seven cohorts of students who entered grade 9 in 2000-06, were enrolled in a Texas public high school for at least three years, and enrolled in a two-year Texas public college or a four-year Texas public or private college or university by spring 2011.

The purpose of this work was to examine the effect of classroom teachers who earn certification as a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards on mathematics and reading achievement and behavioral outcomes (attendance and discipline referrals) for students in Grades 4 and 5. Two studies were conducted separately to examine the effect of NBCTs in North Carolina and Kentucky, which are two states with relatively high concentrations of NBCTs. In each study, propensity score matching was used to match students of NBCTs to similar students of non-NBCTs. Within each grade and within each study, propensity score matching yielded similar student groups (those taught by NBCTs and those not taught by NBCTs) on observed characteristics such as prior-year outcomes and demographics. For each grade level, the academic and behavioral outcomes of students of NBCTs were compared with the outcomes of the matched students taught by non-NBCTs. In North Carolina, there were no statistically significant student achievement differences at either grade between students of NBCTs and students of non-NBCTs. However, Grade 5 students of NBCTs had higher attendance rates than students of non-NBCTs by 0.02 standard deviations. There were no statistically significant effects on the likelihood of a student receiving an in-school or out-of-school suspension in North Carolina. In Kentucky, Grade 5 students taught by NBCTs scored higher than students of non-NBCTs on state student achievement in mathematics and reading by 0.06 standard deviations. There were no statistically significant differences in the behavioral outcomes between the student groups at either grade level in Kentucky.

Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest conducted this literature review to identify malleable factors that can be measured in K-12 settings and that predict students' postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) success (defined as enrolling in, persisting in, and completing a postsecondary STEM major or degree), particularly for Hispanic students. The review found that courses taken in high school and interest or confidence in STEM were strong predictors of postsecondary STEM success for students of all racial/ethnic subgroups. Yet racial/ethnic minority students were less likely than White students to take the highest level math and science courses, and despite similar levels of STEM interest, racial/ethnic minority students were less likely to achieve postsecondary STEM success. Other indicators of postsecondary STEM success included high school grade point average, class rank, math and science achievement, and SAT or ACT scores. Grades in math and science courses were found to be less predictive of postsecondary STEM success for racial/ethnic minority students than for White students. [For the full report, see ED565641.]