During the 2013–14 school year, the Strategic Data Project (SDP) partnered with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) to conduct a set of diagnostic analyses that documented patterns of students’ high school performance, college readiness, and postsecondary success. For the first time, SDP was able to directly link student outcomes to their exposure to high quality instruction, using data on educator performance from PPS’s multiple-measure system of teacher evaluation.
These analyses will provide PPS leaders with a clearer understanding of the district's performance and a foundation for data-driven policy and management decisions. These findings will also complement the policy initiatives already underway to improve students’ exposure to highly effective teaching and to increase graduation rates, college preparedness, and postsecondary enrollment.
SDP produced three Key Findings Reports that highlight important results from this work. These include:
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Relationship Between Teacher Performance and Students’ College Enrollment
This memo explores relationships between PPS students’ exposure to different numbers of courses led by teachers at the Distinguished level and the overall college-going rate. In other words, the analyses investigate whether students who take more courses led by teachers performing at the Distinguished level have higher rates of college enrollment than students who have not experienced as many instances of Distinguished teaching.
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Students’ Exposure to Distinguished Teaching, by High School and Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Status
These analyses link teachers’ performance levels to their classroom assignments, allowing SDP to examine whether students’ exposure to effective teaching varies across district high schools or by a student's family income status.
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Indicators of Postsecondary Success
This report complements work conducted by PPS on a set of data-driven indicators that track students’ progress towards high school graduation and postsecondary readiness and success. SDP analyses used the PPS indicator to examine students’ predicted level of college-readiness at the end of ninth grade and then track how well students’ subsequent high school and college outcomes matched these predictions.