News

Contact: Gail Ribalta
210.558.1902
gribalta@edvanceresearch.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2010

San Antonio – In an effort to help school districts improve student achievement, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is funding a project known as Statewide Tools for Teaching Excellence (STTE) in five Texas public school districts (Beaumont, Conroe, Galena Park, Lubbock, and Northside-San Antonio). Designed to help participating districts build the capacity for using data to drive improvement, the project has defined a system of indicators that help educators focus on key outcomes and monitor critical processes to achieve desired results. Edvance Research, a leading education research organization, is managing STTE.

Kathleen Barfield, STTE Executive Director, states, “The STTE initiative supports an emphasis on improving student performance and progress by allowing educators to evaluate data and quickly act upon this information to make a measurable impact on student achievement”.

As part of the STTE project, a unique community called PM∙Village™ has been created to bring together school leaders, district administrators, teachers and education researchers to create a professional learning center about managing performance. PM∙Village™ is a “community of practice” which provides a venue for members to connect with colleagues, learn from each other, and share experiences. With a focus on evidence-based practice, the community was developed to facilitate innovative approaches to old problems.

A featured tool in the PM∙Village™ is PM∙Pathways™, which enables educators to identify opportunities for improvement, select appropriate interventions and monitor the implementation and effectiveness of the interventions. This tool is intended to focus educators on high priority goals and outcomes and specific actions they can take to intervene for success throughout a school year. Key components of PM.Pathways include:

• Indicator Metric/View - a dashboard / scorecard system based on performance indicators that helps identify area of need.
• Intervention Clearinghouse - allows users to browse a database of researched interventions to address area of need.
• Intervention Planning, Implementation, & Monitoring - Users create and monitor an implementation plan.

“We like to think of PM Pathways as a ‘researcher in a box’ kind of application that gives educators access to evidence-based information that can supplement their professional judgment as they make key decisions about improving their schools,” says Barfield. “They can also contact us for professional assistance to interpret the results they achieve.” For more information visit www.pmvillage.org.

Edvance runs the Regional Educational Laboratory – Southwest (REL Southwest at Edvance Research) for the U.S. Department of Education/Institute of Education Sciences and is leading the Texas Consortium on School Research (TCSR).

Founded in 2005, Edvance Research, Inc. is a nationally known, women and minority, employee owned business, specializing in rigorous product, policy and market research in the education market. Edvance Research is dedicated to improving outcomes by supporting organizations in learning about evidence-based practices and using that information to improve their work and results.

Edvance Research is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. www.edvanceresearch.com.

The STTE project is part of a larger scope of work at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation aimed at improving student achievement by getting timely and historical information to the fingertips of administrators and teachers how and when they need it most. The foundation has committed more than $140 million in education initiatives in Texas to date. For further information about these projects, please visit www.msdf.org.