Clowder Consulting

Creatively redistributing existing teachers in a school may yield academic benefits for students at little additional cost. One such strategy is departmentalized instruction, where each teacher specializes in teaching one subject to multiple classes of students instead of teaching all subjects to a single class (self-contained instruction). Although common in secondary schools, departmentalization has only recently become more popular in elementary schools. This evaluation examines schools' ex

Helping teachers be as effective as possible remains a key national priority, given their role in student success. Classroom management and instructional practices are foundational to effective teaching, but mostly a struggle for lower-performing teachers and those early in their career to do well. This is particularly problematic because these teachers disproportionately work in high-need schools where strong teaching is essential to close student achievement gaps. This study expands the curr

Title II, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides monetary resources to improve teacher quality. One way to affect teacher quality, and thus teacher effectiveness, is by providing in-service teacher training, also called professional development (PD). Currently there is relatively little rigorous empirical evidence on the components of an effective PD program (i.e., the importance of emphasizing content knowledge and how that knowledge might be delivered to teachers and t