VARC staff are participating in a series of webinars sponsored by the department of education to provide support for districts considering implementing performance incentive systems as part of Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, or local initiatives. Michael Christian will be presenting in the session on Structuring Your Alternative Compensation Program: Challenges and Opportunities (to register click here). Chris Thorn and Peter Witham are the hosts of a session on Anticipating the Data Quality Challenges in TIF: Delivering Student-Teacher Linkages and Managing and Presenting Complex Data (to register click here). Recorded webinars will also be available after the fact on the CECR web site.

Amy McIntosh, New York City Department of Education Chief Talant Officer, discusses VARC’s contribution to the district’s teacher data initiative (New York City Department of Education website).

The Racine [WI] Unified School Board on Monday approved a new partnership with the [Value-Added Research Center at the] University of Wisconsin-Madison that will allow the district to identify which specific schools and teachers advance student achievement (Racine Journal Times, 16 March, 2010).

VARC Job Candidate Talks

Accountability and Performance in Secondary Education in the Milwaukee Public Schools

This two-year grant, received from the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the Council of the Great City Schools, uses Milwaukee Public School (MPS) middle and high school transcript data to develop an "Early Warning" system to identify students at high risk of dropping out. Parallel tracks of work involved with the project include the development of an "on-time" indicator of student progress each year and the expansion of the existing MPS system of value-added performance to the high school level.

Contact

Bradley Carl
Phone: (608) 263-3040
Office: 798 Ed Sciences
brcarl@wisc.edu