Subject: New Spotlight Post: Why More Parents Should Take the NYC School Survey

The Research Alliance for New York City Schools
School Survey Response Rates, New People and Projects, and More
New Spotlight Post Examines NYC School Survey Response Rates for Teachers, Students and Parents 
Percentage of Schools with High Response Rates (≥70 Percent) by Type of Respondent and Grade Level, 2015-2016
Each spring, the NYC Department of Education distributes its annual School Survey to all students in grades 6-12, as well as all teachers and parents across the district. The largest education census in the nation, the NYC Survey has the potential to provide vital information about the learning environment in the district’s 1,800 schools. 

The latest post in our Spotlight on NYC Schools series focuses on how to make sense of School Survey response rates, at the school and district level. In general, higher response rates make it more likely that a survey’s results will fully represent the perspectives of the larger population. This post highlights that while the majority of NYC schools have reasonably high teacher and student survey response rates, parent response rates are much lower. For example, in the 2015-2016 school year, almost all middle schools (98%) had a response rate for students that researchers consider sufficient, and 88 percent of middle schools hit that threshold for teachers. But only 33 percent of middle schools had a sufficiently high response rate for parents. Substantially increasing the number of parents who respond to the School Survey is an important goal, to help ensure that it captures high-quality and reliable information about the City’s schools. 

Read Understanding School Survey Response Rates on our website. 
Sean Corcoran Joins the Research Alliance as Senior Technical Advisor 
The Research Alliance is pleased to announce that Dr. Sean Corcoran has joined as a Senior Technical Advisor. Dr. Corcoran will provide technical review of Research Alliance analyses and input about our research agenda. 

“Sean has an extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge,” said Dr. Jim Kemple, the Research Alliance’s executive director. “We are particularly excited to have someone of Sean’s caliber reviewing the technical merits of our work, and helping ensure that we are bringing highly rigorous research methods to bear on important questions for education policy and practice.” 

Dr. Corcoran is an associate professor of Economics and Education Policy at NYU Steinhardt, and has previously collaborated with the Research Alliance on a number of research projects.  

Read more about Dr. Corcoran's role here
New Study to Explore Anti-Racism Training for Educators

The Research Alliance is launching an evaluation of Border Crossers, which aims to disrupt racism at the school and community level by empowering educators through professional development, training, and coaching. The study will examine the quality of program implementation, as well as the outcomes of participating in Border Crossers’ training. This work is being supported by a grant to Border Crossers from the W.K Kellogg Foundation.

Learn more about our evaluation of Border Crossers here
 
Guide for Educators: Elevating Student Voice

Learning Out Loud: Elevating Students Voices in Education highlights programs developed by two NYC high schools – Brooklyn Preparatory Academy and the Academy for Young Writers (AYW) – as part of their participation in the Expanded Success Initiative. Research suggests that when students have choice, control, and leadership opportunities, their motivation and engagement increase, which in turn is linked with better educational outcomes. This guide and its accompanying Tools for Educators present information about programs the schools developed to help elevate students’ voices, including AYM’s Gender Sexuality Alliance and Brooklyn Prep’s Social Justice Panels.  

Read Learning Out Loud: Elevating Student Voices in Education on the Research Alliance website.  

The Research Alliance for New York City Schools is a nonpartisan research center housed at the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The Research Alliance conducts rigorous studies on topics that matter to the city’s public schools. The organization strives to advance equity and excellence in education by providing evidence about policies and practices that promote students' development and academic success.

Learn More at Our Website
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