Since 2002, the Voinovich School has worked with Battelle for Kids to provide assistance on various projects designed to improve school performance and student achievement in Ohio. Battelle is an independent, non-profit organization that is committed to enhancing student learning by helping educators accelerate and bring clarity to their school improvement efforts. The School supports Battelle for Kids’ work by researching how schools use Value-Added Analysis, which is a way to track individual students’ achievements over time and measure the value the school is adding and what impact value-added has on student achievement.
The School has provided research assistance for multiple projects, including Battelle’s Project SOAR (Schools’ Online Achievement Reports) and Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams).
Battelle and the Voinovich School are currently working on two new projects. The first is the use of value-added to improve high schools. School researchers are working with Battelle to evaluate a pilot project that will provide value-added data to high schools.
The second project is the Teachers Connecting Achievement and Progress. Battelle will launch this three-year pilot to develop and use classroom-level value-added analysis to improve student achievement and teacher effectiveness. The School will help by conducting a longitudinal evaluation to examine the student achievement gains of participating schools as compared to similar schools not involved in the project.
Battelle for Kids is a unique partnership initiative created to strengthen support from the business community and the public in order to create and maintain an education system based on the following:
- Clear and rigorous academic content standards
- Support and professional development for teachers
- Fair and effective achievement assessments
- Accountability for results
Julia (Hua) Fang received her doctorate in the Educational Research and Evaluation program at OU’s College of Education. She worked at the School on value-added research projects. Fang was an integral part of the statistical design and analysis process for the longitudinal study of value-added implementation in Ohio. She said she learned a lot from School staff members, including techniques that she applied to academic research, which has been presented at professional conferences and accepted for publication. Fang is now the research assistant professor in the psychology department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Lydia Kyei-Blankson was a graduate research associate with the Voinovich School and helped design the initial longitudinal research projects examining Ohio’s value-added pilot program. Blankson applied her quantitative and qualitative research skills to real data which included proficiency, achievement, behavioral, and interview data gathered from students, parents, and educators from K-12 Ohio public school districts. In addition, Blankson said the School helped her appreciate what it really means to work on a team (e.g. keeping deadlines, in-house meeting times, meeting and discussing issues with clients, seeking the advice and/or help of other teammates or research staff, etc.). Blankson is now an assistant professor at Illinois State University.
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