Title: Major Program Selection
Accounting Policies: The accompanying schedule of expenditures of federal awards (the Schedule) includes the federal award activity of the Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute (the Institute) under programs of the federal government for the year ended December 31, 2024. The information in the Schedule is presented in accordance with the requirements of Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance). Because the Schedule presents only a selected portion of the operations of the Institute, it is not intended to and
does not present the financial position, changes in net assets, or cash flows of the Institute. Expenditures reported on the Schedule are reported on the accrual basis of accounting. Such expenditures are recognized following the cost principles contained in the Uniform Guidance, wherein certain types of expenditures are not allowable or are limited as to reimbursement.
De Minimis Rate Used: N
Rate Explanation: The Institute has elected not to use the 10 percent de minimis indirect cost rate as allowed under the Uniform Guidance.
The major Federal Award Programs selected for testing are as follows:
Research and Development Cluster:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
- Investing in Innovation
- Education Research, Development and Dissemination
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
- Education and Human Resources
The requirements of the Office of Management and Budget Uniform Guidance prescribe that
all major programs as determined by the auditor on a risk-based approach and/or at least 40%
(20% for low-risk auditees) of all federal awards be subject to specific control and/or compliance testing. For the Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute, the programs subject to these requirements are listed above. The total expenditures of these programs represent 100% of the total federal expenditures.
Title: Major Program Disclosure
Accounting Policies: The accompanying schedule of expenditures of federal awards (the Schedule) includes the federal award activity of the Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute (the Institute) under programs of the federal government for the year ended December 31, 2024. The information in the Schedule is presented in accordance with the requirements of Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance). Because the Schedule presents only a selected portion of the operations of the Institute, it is not intended to and
does not present the financial position, changes in net assets, or cash flows of the Institute. Expenditures reported on the Schedule are reported on the accrual basis of accounting. Such expenditures are recognized following the cost principles contained in the Uniform Guidance, wherein certain types of expenditures are not allowable or are limited as to reimbursement.
De Minimis Rate Used: N
Rate Explanation: The Institute has elected not to use the 10 percent de minimis indirect cost rate as allowed under the Uniform Guidance.
I. Learning Progressions in Science
Education and Human Resources, ALN 47.076
The Learning Progressions in Science project is a multi-year collaboration between the BEAR Center at UC Berkeley, The University of Arizona, SERP, and district partners San Francisco Unified and Sunnyside Unified. This current phase of work builds off a decade of collaborative efforts that have resulted in the development of learning progressions and accompanying assessment materials for the NGSS. To date, learning progressions and assessment items have been developed in the content areas of physical sciences, life sciences, and the practice of argumentation. The current phase of the project emphasizes
the content area of natural resources and the cross-cutting concept of patterns through the development of new items, adaptation of existing items, and associated learning progression.
II. Evaluating the Efficacy of MathByExample
Education Research, Development and Dissemination, ALN 84.305A
SERP received a five-year, $640,000 subaward from WestEd to support the independent efficacy study of MathByExample in 4th and 5th grades. The goal of this five-year, three-million-dollar IES-funded project is to determine whether the student outcomes found in smaller studies are similarly found in a large-scale randomized control trial conducted by WestEd across the state of Maine. Schools will be randomly assigned to condition, either MathByExample or business as usual, and teachers at these schools will use the assigned activities for student practice over the course of a school year. If MathByExample leads
to the predicted improvements in student outcomes, the findings will provide a practical solution for helping students construct a robust understanding of core mathematics
concepts in late elementary grades, preparing them for middle school when math achievement remains historically low. By studying the efficacy of the materials, we
hope to provide practitioners with inexpensive, off-the-shelf solutions to improve math performance and influence new studies that incorporate worked examples into other disciplines.
III. Sustaining Literacy Practices Over Time: Codifying Knowledge Through Micro-Credentialing
Education Research, Development and Dissemination, ALN 84.305A
SERP received a four-year, $2 million grant from IES to partner with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), and a research team from Harvard and the University of Maryland to develop and test an intervention consisting of two micro-credentialing courses. The first course will target effective use of student time in literacy centers, a structure for instruction used in the large majority of K–2 classrooms. The second course will target the use of academically productive talk (APT), an instructional practice that supports deep reading comprehension and student engagement but is not widely used. Both courses are being developed in collaboration with DCPS literacy leaders. DCPS K-2 classrooms footage is being collected and will be incorporated into instructional videos featuring researchers and DCPS literacy leaders. Course content will be revised
in response to feedback from teachers in usability studies conducted through an iterative development process.
Schools will be randomly assigned to participate in each of the courses in year 3 of the study. Eligible teachers in the treatment schools will include those in Grades K-2 who
are in their first three years of teaching, and those who are in warning status on their teacher evaluation. The impact of the courses on teachers’ practice and student learning will be evaluated.
IV. Scaling Students’ Success with STARTI: Expanding Eligibility, Support, and Spread
Investing in Innovation, ALN 84.411B
SERP was awarded a five-year, $15 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) expansion-phase grant starting in January 2023 to build the capacity to scale the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI). This grant will support the program’s adoption in four states in different regions of the country, and to study its effectiveness with these different populations. The goals for the project are: 1. To improve the reading skills of middle school students, demonstrating effects of STARI as compared to business-as-usual on reading behaviors, proximal reading skills (ReadBasix), progress toward meeting grade-level standards (state tests), and leading indicators of distal outcomes (course pass rates); 2. To build teacher capacity for effective literacy instruction and to measure the impact of STARI professional learning on teachers’ knowledge and instructional practice; 3. To determine for whom and under what conditions STARI is most effective by examining outcomes for subgroups (students reading far below grade level, students with IEPs, English learners); 4. To create an affordable, sustainable package of supports for schools that choose to implement STARI outside of a grant-funded research study; and 5. To disseminate results and expand the use of STARI nationwide.
V. Building Capacity to Support Struggling Adolescent Readers
Investing in Innovation, ALN 84.411B
SERP was awarded a five-year, $7.8 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) mid-phase grant in October 2018 to build the capacity to scale the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI). In a prior study, STARI showed impacts that are statistically and substantively significant on component reading skills and on deep comprehension. This project allowed SERP to expand the capacity-building resources available for STARI and scale the program to more districts, schools, teachers, and students. To meet the cost-matching requirement, SERP received contributions from the Abell Foundation, Blaustein Foundation, and the New York Community Trust, as well as several in-kind donations.
The plan for the project included training teachers and coaches and distributing program materials to an estimated 3,500 students, including workbooks, fluency passages written
at four levels, and the novels, non-fiction texts, and poetry that accompany each unit. Eligible students assigned randomly received either STARI or the school’s business-as-usual reading intervention. MDRC conducted the evaluation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, work in schools and data collection efforts were impacted significantly in 2020 and 2021. After two disrupted study years, research efforts resumed at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year with a smaller sample in New York City and Jackson (MS). Results demonstrated significant impacts on the Mississippi State Tests.
While the research components of the project were disrupted, product development efforts continued and expanded to include extensive support and resources for classrooms using STARI in hybrid and virtual learning environments. The development of professional learning resources enables more schools and districts to adopt and implement the program successfully in the future. Thus, the anticipated impact far exceeds the number of students directly served through the project.
In addition, the project team has written several peer-reviewed journal articles and presented them at several literacy conferences. SERP also applied for and received an EIR expansion grant to continue to scale and support STARI in several states. The mid-phase project ended June 30, 2023.
VI. GeometryByExample: Developing an Effective Intervention for Varied Geometry Content and Learner Characteristics
Education Research, Development and Dissemination, ALN 84.305A
SERP received a three-year, $600,000 subaward from Temple University to support the research, development, and dissemination of GeometryByExample, building on the successful, IES-funded AlgebraByExample and MathByExample projects. The goal of this three-year, $1.5 million, IES-funded project is to dislodge common misconceptions in high school geometry through skillfully crafted assignments that can be easily integrated into teaching practices, regardless of the district-chosen curricula.
Compared with Algebra, the content being taught in Geometry is more varied (e.g., using computations and equations to solve problems vs. proving geometric theorems), and prior content knowledge is not the only student characteristic that influences learning (e.g., spatial knowledge is also necessary).
GeometryByExample assignments were developed through an iterative process in close collaboration with geometry teachers and math team leaders. Experimental classroom studies were planned to determine the usability and feasibility of the materials and to examine whether and how the impact of these materials varies based on individual differences in student characteristics such as prior content knowledge and spatial visualization skills. However, recruitment and formal data collection efforts were severely impacted by COVID-19. In Spring 2022, the project team collected informal feedback from Geometry teachers across the country to revise and improve the assignments in preparation for a pilot study in SY2022-23 during a no-cost extension year. The pilot study was completed, and the project team is preparing the materials for the public. The final version of GeometryByExample assignments will be launched with a project website in the final year of the project. Assignments will be added to the ByExample online platform to enable classrooms to use the assignments on a computer or tablet.
VII. Transdisciplinary Approaches to Improving Opportunities and Outcomes for English Learners: Using Engagement, Team Based Learning, and Formative Assessment to Develop Content and Language Proficiency
Education Research, Development and Dissemination, ALN 84.305C
Funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the Center for the Success of English Learners (CSEL) will aim to identify and remove barriers to school-level practices influenced by policies that constrain student’s course-taking and develop and test interventions that improve instruction for ELs. The work of the center will consist of three strands: 1) policy, 2) instruction, and 3) leadership. SERPs contribution to the center will focus on the instruction strand that is aimed at developing and testing interventions to improve instruction for ELs in Grades 6 and Grade 9 in Science and Grades 6, 8, and 9 in Social Studies. The interventions will consist of new content and adaptations of existing SERP products, SciGen and SoGen for EL students and leverage four transdisciplinary approaches to improve instruction for ELs. These levers include: 1) foregrounding content
to build language through content instruction, 2) using activities that are engaging and meaningful to students while involving students in the practices of the discipline, 3) using organizing learning in heterogenous teams (Team-Based Learning) to promote collaboration, discussion, and social motivation, and 4) making use of formative assessment to improve teachers’ and students’ understanding of students’ development, and to promote responsive instruction and feedback to students.
VIII. Adapting STARI to Accelerate Student Reading Achievement in Middle Grades
Education Research, Development and Dissemination, ALN 84.305N
SERP was awarded a two-year, $1 million grant as part of IES’ Leveraging Evidence to Accelerate Recovery Nationwide (LEARN) Network, which focuses on adapting and preparing to scale existing, evidence-based products that have the potential to accelerate students' learning relative to pre-pandemic rates of growth. The purpose of this project
is to further adapt and assess the impact of the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) to respond to the urgent need to accelerate learning among middle grades students reading two or more years below grade level. The goals of this project are to identify barriers to uptake and implementation of the program, to develop the highest priority adaptations that address students' needs, and to test the effects of the adapted version of STARI on students' academic outcomes. Adaptations will be prioritized according to a roughly estimated rate of return, and the highest priority adaptations will
be undertaken within the grant period to the extent possible. The research team will assess the effectiveness of STARI for accelerating student reading growth using a regression discontinuity design that will allow for comparison of students who participate in STARI in one partner district with those who do not. The team will also compare current STARI students' growth trajectories with reading growth of middle school students in the same schools in 2017-18 and 2018-19, in order to analyze STARI's effectiveness as compared with pre-pandemic rates of growth.