POLICY RESEARCH

The Policy research component is being led by Bill Bosher, Daniel Norman Judy Singleton and David Blount through VCU’s Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute (CEPI). They are providing assistance to the principal investigators in the study of policy-related issues associated with the implementation of Mathematics Specialists Program across Virginia.

First, CEPI will assist project leadership with issues related to policy and regulatory development and implementation including access and communications between the local school districts, appropriate state education agencies, the state legislature, and the university project investigators, researchers and evaluators. Bill Bosher enlisted the participating school systems to participate in this project and received assurances that they will participate fully in all of the requirements for access to students and records that are required to undertake the research that will be conducted. He will assure that this access is provided throughout the project.

Second, CEPI is utilizing a state-level longitudinal case study approach to collect and analyze all policy, legislative, regulatory, and funding issues related to the establishment of the Mathematics Specialists Initiative. Specifically, this study will include analytical components involving political support and expectation, establishment of state licensure, funding mechanisms, training expectations, costs and benefit analyses, and implementation issues.

Third, the longitudinal case study will additionally focus on the parallel utilization history of the project schools and districts including local policy and program regulatory issues. Specifically in this area, CEPI will work collaboratively with the project researchers to design appropriate data collection for local school and district policy and implementation issues regarding personnel selection, recruitment, job description development, and specialist/classroom teacher interaction. Impact of Specialists upon district instructional services, support systems and professional development will be analyzed in the policy and regulatory context. Additionally, CEPI will work closely with project researchers to include policy analysis that may be required as a component of the project’s overall research design as well as to plan within the overall design appropriate data collection methodologies for the state-wide and local district case studies. CEPI in partnership with the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium at VCU will provide assistance and support as needed in implementing data collection and analysis for the formative evaluation requirements set by project researchers.

An interim but cumulative policy report on both the statewide initiative and the local school/district implementation issues will be issued annually during the project period. Each interim report will include specific findings and recommendations intended for practical problem solving in project implementation. It is anticipated that data analysis conducted by the team conducting research of the effectiveness of Mathematics Specialists will raise additional policy, regulatory and funding choice issues that will need to be incorporated in the case studies. Similarly, policy research likely will uncover additional issues that need to be addressed concerning the effectiveness of Mathematics Specialists. The final report will include corroborative data from survey, interview and participant polling to support/refute preliminary policy, regulatory and implementation issue findings studied during the period covered by the project.