Susanna Loeb

The purpose of this project was to develop, expand, refine, critique, improve, and disseminate EdInstruments, an open-source library of education-relevant measurement tools launched by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. EdInstruments provides information on instruments used to measure students' academic content knowledge, as well as a range of additional capabilities (knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions) that help students thrive. In addition, EdInstruments provides info...

This project explored how taking virtual (online) courses in high school affects students' course progression and academic achievement. Online courses are widely used, but policymakers have little rigorous evidence on whether online courses promote student achievement. Some states, such as Florida, require all students to take at least one online course prior to graduation. This project used data from Florida to examine the use of online courses, potential effects of online courses on studen...

During the past 40 years, the United States has made major advances in expanding access to postsecondary education, but many students arrive at college without the requisite English and math skills to perform college-level work. Community colleges and other open-access institutions have traditionally responded by placing such students into sequential developmental (or remedial) education courses with outdated curricula and instructional practices. Unfortunately, research indicates that stude...

In ongoing efforts to improve student learning and the quality of instruction, practitioners and education stakeholders rely on measures of classroom practice. Researchers have been developing classroom observation tools to evaluate teacher performance, such as the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO), which highlights 12 elements of high quality teaching in English language arts (ELA). Although the initial studies demonstrated the power of PLATO as a research tool for ob...

Since 2006, the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) has conducted a focused program of research on current State or district education policies intended to improve student achievement and other education outcomes (e.g., high school graduation rates) in any grades from prekindergarten through Grade 12.

The purpose of this study is to examine the availability of early childhood education and care (ECEC), explore the extent to which policies and regulations impact supply, and examine the link between supply and child outcomes. This study will explore the impact of childcare regulations across all types of early childhood education and care settings including family day care homes, private child care, Head Start, and state-funded preschool programs. The research team will address the policy a...

This study aims to identify the specific attributes, skills, orientations, and behaviors of school leaders that are associated with positive school outcomes. This study will describe differences in these principal management and leadership characteristics across schools and over time, focusing on malleable factors that can be taught, coached, and selected for in the identification of school leaders. In addition, the study seeks to describe career pathways that lead to the principalship, as w...

Supported by a five-year, $10 million grant from the Institute for Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, CALDER is a federally funded National Research and Development Center. The center will harvest state and district administrative data on individual teachers and students for insights into how state and local policies, especially teacher policies, governance policies, and accountability policies affect teachers (e.g., who teaches what students) and students (e.g., academic a

The focus of the program was on research addressing school-wide behavior support practices and integration of family support systems within schools, as well as methodological issues of studying intervention effects.