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Evaluation of the Teach For America Investing in Innovation Scale-Up

Last registered on December 28, 2013
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Evaluation of the Teach For America Investing in Innovation Scale-Up
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000184
First published
December 28, 2013, 4:20 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Melissa Clark
Affiliation
Mathematica Policy Research
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Eric Isenberg
PI Affiliation
Mathematica Policy Research
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2012-08-01
End date
2014-12-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This evaluation will examine TFA’s efforts to scale up their program under an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Under the scale-up initiative, TFA plans to increase the size of its teacher corps by more than 80 percent by September 2014, placing 28,000 TFA teachers in high-need classrooms. The evaluation will include an implementation analysis of the scale-up efforts as well as an analysis of the impact of the scaled-up program on student achievement at the elementary school level. The impact analysis will be based on an experimental design, under which students in a given school and grade will be randomly assigned to a class taught by a TFA teacher or a class taught by a non-TFA teacher. Information on program implementation will be collected from interviews with TFA staff and TFA-collected data on both successful and unsuccessful applicants to its program. Data on student achievement for the impact analysis will be obtained from a study-administered assessment for students in grades kindergarten through 2 and from state or district records for students in grades 3 through 5. We will also survey teachers in the impact analysis sample on their backgrounds, attitudes, and classroom practices.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Clark, Melissa and Eric Isenberg. 2013. "Evaluation of the Teach For America Investing in Innovation Scale-Up." AEA RCT Registry. December 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.184-1.0
Former Citation
Clark, Melissa and Eric Isenberg. 2013. "Evaluation of the Teach For America Investing in Innovation Scale-Up." AEA RCT Registry. December 28. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/184/history/775
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Teach For America (TFA) is a program that strives to reduce educational inequities through the provision of high–quality teachers to low–income schools. The program recruits and trains college graduates with strong academic backgrounds and leadership capabilities to commit to teach for two years in public schools in low–income communities. These teachers, called corps members, typically have no formal training in education but receive an intensive five–week training from TFA before beginning their first teaching job. They also receive ongoing support from TFA throughout their two–year commitment.

In 2010, TFA launched a major expansion effort, funded in part by a five–year Investing in Innovation (i3) Scale–Up grant of $50 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII). This was one of four i3 scale–up grants, which were awarded to fund expansion of programs with rigorous evidence of prior effectiveness in improving student achievement. Through the i3 scale–up project, TFA plans to increase the size of its teacher corps by more than 80 percent by September 2014, with the goal of placing 13,500 first– and second–year corps members in classrooms by the 2014–2015 school year, expanding from 39 to 52 to 54 regions across the country, and accounting for more than 20 percent of new hires in high–poverty schools in these regions.

TFA has contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the i3 scale–up project’s effectiveness. This evaluation will include an analysis of the scale–up’s implementation as well as an analysis of the impact of elementary school TFA teachers recruited in the first and second years of the scale–up.
Intervention Start Date
2012-08-01
Intervention End Date
2013-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Student reading and math test scores
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Students in grades pre-kindergarten-2: Study-administered Woodcock-Johnson III Normative Update (NU) Tests of Achievement: Letter-Word Identification (grades prekindergarten–2), Passage Comprehension (grades kindergarten–2) subtests, Applied Problems (grades prekindergarten–2) and Calculation (grades 1–2) subtests.

Students in grades 3-5: Spring 2013 state reading and math assessment scores from district records

All scores converted to z-scores using control group means and standard deviations.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Random assignment of students to class taught by TFA teacher or class taught by teacher from some other teacher preparation program in the same grade and school.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization conducted by researchers using computer program.
Randomization Unit
Students
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
4,466 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
4,466 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2,233 students assigned to TFA teachers, 2,233 assigned to teachers from other programs.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.10 standard deviations of test scores
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
New England IRB
IRB Approval Date
2012-07-13
IRB Approval Number
12-192
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials