Thomas Wei

Because English learners (ELs) are a diverse group, looking at their academic achievement in the aggregate may hide important opportunities to identify challenges and target services to help particular subsets of them. In 2016, the Office of English Language Acquisition of the U.S. Department of Education awarded grants to three states — Minnesota, Hawaii, and Washington under the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Data Disaggregation Initiative. The grants are intended to suppor

Helping teachers be as effective as possible remains a key national priority, given their role in student success. Classroom management and instructional practices are foundational to effective teaching, but mostly a struggle for lower-performing teachers and those early in their career to do well. This is particularly problematic because these teachers disproportionately work in high-need schools where strong teaching is essential to close student achievement gaps. This study expands the curr

Title II, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides monetary resources to improve teacher quality. One way to affect teacher quality, and thus teacher effectiveness, is by providing in-service teacher training, also called professional development (PD). Currently there is relatively little rigorous empirical evidence on the components of an effective PD program (i.e., the importance of emphasizing content knowledge and how that knowledge might be delivered to teachers and t

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was a $831 billion economic stimulus package that included $100 billion for states and districts to secure teachers' jobs and promote innovation in schools. Among the federal education programs that ARRA provided funding for were Race to the Top (RTT, $4 billion) and School Improvement Grants (SIG, $3 billion). RTT was a competitive discretionary grant program announced in 2009 that funded states and districts planning to implement compr

The federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program was authorized by Title I, Section 1003(g) of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The purpose of the grants was to help turn around the nation's persistently lowest-achieving schools. States received SIG funds from the U.S. Department of Education based on Title I funding formulas. They then competitively distributed the funds to districts applying on behalf of their eligible schools. The first cohort of SIG, which is the focus of this stud

Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (as reauthorized in 2001 by the No Child Left Behind Act) is intended to help ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach proficiency on challenging state standards and assessments. As the largest federal program supporting elementary and secondary education (funded at $13.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2008), these resources are targeted primarily to high-poverty districts and schools.There