Which Bets Paid Off?: Estimating the Effects on Middle Grades Achievement of More Than a Decade of Ambitious Reform in Philadelphia

研究人员建议分析费城在几年的中学数学和科学课程改革努力中收集的大量数据集。 一些改革的努力是在国家科学基金会的资助下实施的，一些学校使用国家科学基金会资助的数学课程（数学在上下文中），一些时间替代模型在城市中实施。 研究人员建议，通过检查学生在各种改革实施期间的表现变化，来了解城市政策变化的混乱。 分析方法将需要使用变化和增长曲线的多层次模型对大型数据集进行统计操作，以估计每项重大改革对中年级学生成绩增长的影响。 这项研究还将包括对该市教育领导人访谈的分析。 这项研究的独特之处在于，研究人员可以访问每个学生在一段时间内的个人表现数据。 他们将能够使用中断的时间序列方法与多层次增长分析进行比较，他们还将采用定性数据收集和分析，以深入了解费城系统性改革努力的背景信息。 本研究全面考察了一个大城市的学校改革。

The researchers propose to analyze a large series of data sets collected for the city of Philadelphia during several years of reform efforts for its middle mathematics and science classes. Some of the reform efforts were implemented with NSF funding, some of the schools used NSF funded mathematics curriculum (Mathematics in Context), and some of the time alternative models were implemented in the city. The researchers propose to make some sense out of the turmoil of change in the cities policies by examining variations in the student performance changes over the period of time that the various reforms were in place. The methods of analysis will require statistical manipulation of large data sets using multilevel models of change and growth curves to estimate the impact of each of the major reforms on student achievement growth during the middle grades. The study will also include analysis of interviews with educational leaders of the city. The unique aspect of this study is that the researchers have access to individual student performance data over time for each student. They will be able to use an interrupted time series approach to compare with the multilevel growth analysis and they will also employ qualitative data collection and analysis for in-depth contextual information about systemic reform efforts in Philadelphia. The study examines reform of schools in a large urban city in a comprehensive way.