Acknowledgments

This study was the product of many people’s efforts beyond the authors of this report. The technical working group for the study provided useful insight into and reactions to earlier presentations of methods and findings. The group included Carol Bartell, Mark Berends, Larry Hedges, Hamilton Lankford, Rebecca Maynard, Sandra Odell, Jeffrey Smith, and Todd Stinebrickner. We wish we could name the many dedicated individuals in the 17 participating school districts who provided us with data and cooperated with the study in many ways. These people were extraordinarily generous with their time and expertise.

At WestEd, Cathy Ringstaff did an excellent job coordinating the field visits and other work needed to monitor implementation of the induction programs. Staff from the two induction programs—Educational Testing Service and the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz—were extremely cooperative with study demands and generously shared all facets of their programs with us.

At Mathematica, Pat Nemeth oversaw a complex multi-wave data collection effort as the survey director, ably assisted by Linda Mendenko and Nakis Evgeniou. Amy Raduzycki, Phyllis Schulman, and Susan Golden played critical roles in achieving high response rates to the surveys. Renée Nogales was instrumental and very persistent in gathering test score records from the many districts that participated in the study. Gail Baxter, Kristin Hallgren, and Kathy Sonnenfeld coordinated with districts at several stages. Matthew Jacobus and Ama Takyi-Laryea, assisted by Dominic Harris and Elizabeth Seif, provided expert programming assistance. Roberto Agodini carefully reviewed drafts of the report and provided helpful comments. The report was produced by Donna Dorsey. Mustafa Menai and Mindy Hu provided additional production support.

This study incorporates data on individual teachers’ college entrance examination scores provided to Mathematica by the College Board and by ACT.