Using Student Surveys: Implications for State and District Policy

Overview

This webinar focused on the use of student surveys at the district and state levels. Elaine Allensworth, from the Consortium on Chicago School Research, discussed the Illinois Five Essentials; Kendra Wilhelm, Denver Public Schools, talked about the LEAP (Leading Effective Academic Practice) work in Denver that is DPS’s system of evaluating the performance and supporting the growth of teachers, and Amy Farley discussed the Colorado Legacy Foundation’s work on using student surveys with pilot districts, including rural districts.

Presenters Included:

Elaine Allensworth, Lewis-Sebring Director, UCHICAGOCCSR Amy Farley, Director, Research and Impact, Colorado Legacy Foundation Kendra Wilhelm, Senior Program Manager, LEAP, Denver Public Schools

Presenter Biographies

Elaine Allensworth, Ph.D. is the Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research where she has conducted research on educational policy for the last 15 years. Her research on early indicators of high school graduation has been used to create early warning tracking systems in Chicago and districts across the country. She is one of the authors of the book, Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago, which provides a detailed analysis of school practices and community conditions which promote school improvement. She serves on a number of local and national advisory boards on issues around research and education policy.

Amy Farley is a director of Research and Impact at the Colorado Legacy Foundation (CLF). In her role at CLF, Amy has led the development and execution of the associated research plan for the Integration grant, which focuses on the integration of policies related to standards, evaluations, and assessments within 13 districts across the state of Colorado. Amy also serves as the primary researcher on Teach 360, a study designed to identify teacher effectiveness measures for first-year teachers. Finally, since 2012, Amy has led the development and survey pilot for the Colorado Student Perception Survey, to be used as an optional measure in the state model teacher and principal evaluation system. Amy initially joined CLF as part of a two-year fellowship with the Strategic Data Project (SDP), housed at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. The SDP Fellowship places analysts in partner agencies where they work to influence policy decisions that impact student outcomes and transform key policy and management decisions through robust data analysis. Amy is also graduating this May with a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder’s School of Education, with a dual emphasis on education policy and research methods. Prior to graduate school, she taught 4^th and 5^th grade and middle school math. Kendra Wilhelm has been the Sr. Program Manager of the Leading Effective Academic Practice (LEAP) at Denver Public Schools since July 2013. She is responsible for working across departments and functional workstreams to drive forward the successful implementation of LEAP, DPS’s teacher support and evaluation system. She also manages the pilot implementation of the support and evaluation system for DPS’s specialized service providers, and works closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Kendra comes to Denver Public Schools with over 15 years of product and program management experience across industries as varied as education, online software development, healthcare, and news media. Her experience with education is based in her role managing the development of all educational technology products released with Macmillan/McGraw-Hill’s pre-K-6 reading textbook programs, several years as a textbook editor, and as an instructional designer for Kaplan. Kendra earned a BA in Anthropology from Vassar College, and her MBA from Adelphi University.