Forming Catholic School Teacher Leaders: An Impact Evaluation of the ACE Ascent Program

The ACE Ascent program is a two-year program that focuses on forming teachers into master teachers and leaders in their school in mathematics curriculum and instruction. K-8 school superintendents, principals, teachers, and staff in two different California dioceses will be brought together to complete coursework and attend workshops under a collective leadership model.

2023-08-01

2029-06-01

Standardized test scores

Student level math mastery of grade level concepts using the STAR assessment tool, measured fall, winter, spring, annually

Teacher planning/prep time
Social network
Math identity
Spiritual well-being
Dispositional joy
Intersection of math/spirituality
Vocation

Teacher planning/prep time:
Teacher-leaders will report how they spent their work time using a reporting app build for the study, Tuesdays and Thursdays the last week of September through the first week of November and last week of January through first week of March, annually
Social network:
Teachers will be asked to report who they have talked to or gotten teaching advice from this semester, they may list up to 10 people and describe their interactions, this is collected April and November annually
Math identity:
Teachers will be asked about their math identity, at the start of school year 1 of treatment, between years 1 and 2 and at the end of year 2
Spiritual Well-being:
Teachers will be asked about their spiritual life, at the start of school year 1 of treatment, between years 1 and 2 and at the end of year 2
Dispositional joy:
Teachers will be asked about joy, at the start of school year 1 of treatment, between years 1 and 2 and at the end of year 2
Intersection of math/spirituality:
Teachers will be asked to write a math autobiography and reflect on their faith and spirituality, they will create two life graphs, this will be at the start and end of the two year program
Teachers will also be interviewed at the start and end of their program on questions about identity as math teachers and people of faith

ACE is rolling out the Ascent program to participating schools in Diocese 1 (N=9) and Diocese 2 (N=35) over five academic years beginning in the 2023–24 academic year. Schools were randomly selected to receive the program in one of the five study years. During the summer before the selected school year, a teacher from the participating school will begin the Ascent program. Students attending schools in years where there was an Ascent-trained teacher will be considered part of the treatment group. Students attending schools in years where there was not yet an Ascent-trained teacher will be considered part of the control group. Thus, the study will compare student outcomes between schools selected earlier and later in the study to receive an Ascent teacher, which was randomly determined.

Not available

Randomization conducted by computer using Stata

School

Yes

44 schools

16,000 students

44 schools, with 9 schools moving from control to treatment each year of 5 years

Power calculations for this study were conducted using test score data from 2018–2022 provided by the two dioceses on the schools participating in the study. Using the randomization protocol implemented in the study, the researchers generated 10,000 iterations of the treatment assignment over the schools in the study. For each iteration, the researchers estimated a two-way fixed effects model with school and year fixed effects and an indicator for whether the students in that school-cohort were treated. Effects were estimated separately for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade standardized math test scores. These calculations yielded a projected MDE of 0.163 to 0.187 standard deviations in test scores.

Ascent Pre-Analysis Plan