Presidential Essay: AEFP’s Role in an Evidence-Informed Education Ecosystem Historically, the U.S. federal government has invested in education research as a public good, with the implicit assumption that such research can support more efficient and effective educational oppo...

Presidential Essay: @aefpweb.bsky.social's Role in an Evidence-Informed Education Ecosystem via @efpjournal.bsky.social
direct.mit.edu/edfp/article...

🚨New working paper alert! 🚨

The US spends huge $ on special education services for students with disabilities. Is that spending effective?

Today we released a working paper suggesting it is.

"Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States"

Let me explain...

If you are interested in nationwide state-level CS education policies, please stop by our session at 10:00am today! I’ll be presenting our team’s work, led by @paul-bruno.com, @edutuan.bsky.social, and Dr. Colleen Lewis, in the STEM pathways session at the @aefpweb.bsky.social. Details below⬇️

My department is hiring! Specialized teaching faculty to support our EdD programs! illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Let me know if you have questions. It's great here!

Our recent paper on hiring committees was featured in our college news👇 This study was supported by a Public Engagement Faculty Fellowship from @educationillinois.bsky.social. Many thanks to my co-author and advisor, @paul-bruno.com, and to the school district for this valuable partnership!

EPOL Team Publishes Research as Part of Public Engagement Fellowship Program

Our work was recently featured here:

blogs.illinois.edu/view/1526/10...

Resharing our paper for anyone who may have missed it and is interested in school hiring practices!

School districts have SO MUCH data just waiting to be transformed into insights and I love how Haeryun and Paul made use of that in this study.

Look forward to reading this impressive study diving deep into school hiring practices.

Massive credit to Haeryun for making this possible. The data were hard copies and handwritten when we got them!

Our findings show how administrators' self-reported candidate preferences in the literature align with the factors most salient in real-world hiring contexts.

They also highlight the need to first consider “what districts actually consider during hiring” rather than creating a priori criteria!

3️⃣ Third, the district generally hires its most preferred candidates among those interviewed. Although some unobservables remain, these results suggest that the collective inputs of hiring committees practically inform final hiring decisions in the district, rather than being purely advisory.

2️⃣ Second, using text analysis, we found that hiring committees in the district appear to prefer candidates with the professional and personal traits listed in Table 3 below. In contrast, Table 4 shows candidate weaknesses associated with their lower rankings evaluated by committee members.

Utilizing data on 211 candidates for 68 positions, we found the following:

1️⃣ First, on average, the hiring committees we observe have a high degree of agreement about the relative ranking of candidates. These high levels of agreement are not driven primarily by small committees or candidate pools.

❗️❗️The strength of this study lies in the data we use:

(1) committees’ paper evaluation forms, noting candidate strengths and weaknesses.
(2) interview ballots indicating the rank-ordered preference of each committee member for each candidate.
(3) Information on ultimately hired candidates.

One approach to strategic staff selection in schools is the use of school site hiring committees. However, we know little about how they operate or which candidate characteristics they prefer.

This study addresses this gap by asking the following research questions:


The Operations of School Hiring Committees: Committees’ Preferences, Agreement, and Hiring Outcomes This study explores the operation of school hiring committees using data from one district in Illinois, including candidate rankings, handwritten interview notes, and hiring outcomes. We find that ...

🚨 New paper from me and my advisor, @paul-bruno.com! Using unique hiring data from a school district in Illinois, we examined how school hiring committees operate, focusing on their inter-rater agreement and what characteristics they prioritize in applicants.

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/J2TJW...

Last week, I presented ongoing work with my advisor, @paul-bruno.com, at #2025APAMM, as part of an amazing panel! Our work examined how school hiring committees operate using actual hiring data from one Illinois school district. I truly appreciated attentive listening and insightful discussion! :)

We know the school finance matters to the kids and the compensation matters to the teachers but we don't actually know much about how to trade off between different things in that general area. bsky.app/profile/paul...

Excited to share that our work was featured!

The summary thread for this work is available here: bsky.app/profile/paul..., shared by @paul-bruno.com!

One of the things that I find interesting in this work is that the relationship between teacher applications/slot and poverty is different for traditional public and charter schools. Here's a pic, you'll have to read the paper for more on this!

🔔 Our new working paper is out at EdWorkingPapers!

Using our unique, self-collected longitudinal data on CS policies, we examined their impact on postsecondary CS participation.

If you’re curious about the details of our work, please check it out here👇 (@paul-bruno.com shared a cool summary!)

From my experience, presenting to the Quantitative Working Group in my department is a great opportunity to practice sharing your work and to receive constructive feedback from faculty and peers. I highly recommend taking advantage of it!

Above all, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to think through this issue. While I haven't yet used wage adjustments in my work, I plan to incorporate them into my ongoing research on school finance. Thus, this discussion has been very helpful. Thank you so much, @carajackson.bsky.social!

One initial thought I've had is to use average data from previous years (similar to @cmsaldana.bsky.social ’s response). Also checking state-level data from state websites and exploring if they can be standardized for comparisons comes to mind, though availability and feasibility remain uncertain!

Los Angeles School District Principals’ Views on Teacher Hiring System Vary Widely

A study by Jennifer Nelson and @paul-bruno.com looked at hiring practices in Los Angeles schools. They found that despite a standardized screening system to find teachers, principals often use hiring strategies outside the system to find new candidates.

More: education.illinois.edu/about/news-e...

If we're heading into summer that means academic job market season is looming. As a reminder, my collected tips are here (along with my standing offer to set up time to chat with folks): www.paul-bruno.com/2021/07/tips...

Please let us know if you’re interested in joining our AERA symposium submission below!👇 Our paper is about the impact of computer science (CS) education policies.

🚨If you're curious about who teaches computer science (CS) in high school, check out my advisor @paul-bruno.com's recent paper! It shows cool findings on the relationship between CS teachers' backgrounds and student outcomes.

The Myths We Need to Shatter to Set Realistic, Clear-Eyed Expectations for Teaching and Teachers Jon Harper with Annette Ponnock, PhD, Amir Taron Aryes, Robert Pondiscio, Devon Beck, and Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth, JD This conversation delves into the pressing issue of teacher shortages across the Un...

I went on BAM Radio to talk teacher shortages. www.bamradionetwork.com/track/the-my...