DPI and UW-Madison education researchers team up in $5.2 million grant to reduce gaps in opportunity
November 24, 2015
MADISON, WIS. – A new $5.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant will fund the largest research collaboration to date between Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction and its flagship university. Over the next four years, education researchers at DPI and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, part of UW-Madison’s School of Education, will mine longitudinal data from Wisconsin schools to identify proven practices that teachers can use to narrow gaps in student opportunity and achievement levels across all racial and ethnic backgrounds, and family income levels.
For the past 10 years, DPI has worked with public school districts across the state to collect data about students, staff and academic courses, and to provide reports based on this information. Anyone logging on to DPI’s information portal—WISEDash—can find demographic details about each public elementary, middle and high school in the state, such as attendance, truancy, graduation rates, test scores, economic status, race and disabilities.
WCER and DPI researchers now plan to go one step further and leverage this information to help ensure that African American, Latino and poor children in Wisconsin enjoy the same levels of educational opportunity and success as their white and more economically advantaged peers.
“We really want to focus on schools where achievement gaps are narrowing to find out what these schools are doing successfully,” said Jared Knowles, a DPI research analyst and the project’s principal investigator. “Our goal is to translate that analysis and research into evidence-based recommendations that principals, administrators, teachers and guidance counselors can easily use to make better decisions on how to solve the challenges unique to their districts, and better serve students.”
To conduct a professional study of this magnitude, Knowles turned to WCER and enlisted a team of university researchers led by Eric Grodsky, associate professor of sociology and educational policy studies.
“This is a level of collaboration that I think is novel,” said Grodsky. Although WCER and DPI bring different assets to the table, they share a common goal. “This project is an opportunity for us to work more closely together on issues that are central to the lives of kids in Wisconsin,” he said.
The cornerstone of WCER’s research—for which it will receive up to $600,000 per year of the grant money—is to identify those schools in Wisconsin where racial and economic achievement gaps are narrowing. Then Grodsky and his research team will conduct extensive, on-site interviews with school officials to identify effective practices that other districts can replicate.
“The more we learn about what’s impactful, the more channels we can pursue to try to help kids in the state,” said Grodsky. He and Knowles will work with several other university research groups: the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative, led by Brad Carl, Annalee Good and Steven Kimball; the Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network, led by Rich Halvorson and Jack Jorgensen; and the Institute for Research on Poverty, led by Lonnie Berger and Jennifer Noyes.
Knowles and the UW-Madison team will kick off the project later this month. The end game, the lead investigator said, is to help create local and state policy that schools eventually will adopt to make much-needed changes in their districts.
“Everyone at WCER wants to see kids doing better, straight up,” said Grodsky. “We want to see kids in Wisconsin, children of color and economically disadvantaged kids, doing better in school—better test scores, less truancy and higher graduation rates.”
##
Research Contacts:
Lead Researcher: Jared Knowles
Research Analyst, Policy and Budget
Department of Public Instruction
608.266.5186
Jared.Knowles@dpi.wi.gov
Eric Grodsky
Associate Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies
Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison
608.262.4896
egrodsky@ssc.wisc.edu
ABOUT WCER: WCER is one of the oldest, largest and most productive university-based education research centers in the world. Part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, it is home to approximately 70 research projects conducted by 500 faculty, staff and graduate students. The center, founded in 1964, receives more than $50 million annually from federal and state agencies, as well as private foundations. WCER is committed to improving educational outcomes for the nation’s diverse student population, positively impacting education practice and fostering collaboration among disciplines and practitioners.
