Impact Study Evaluation of the Rural Math Innovation Network (RMIN) i3 Development Project
Author: Cowley, Kimberly S.
Date: 2020-07-09
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Rural Education,Mathematics Education,Teacher Competencies,Middle School Teachers,High School Teachers,Algebra,Secondary School Mathematics,Program Effectiveness,Self Efficacy,Lesson Plans,Teaching Methods,Educational Innovation,Social Development,Emotional Development,Intervention,Geometry,Educational Technology,Standardized Tests,Faculty Development,At Risk Students

The Rural Math Innovation Network (RMIN) is a 4-year project that launched in January 2017 after receiving a $2.9 million Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and matching funds from the private sector. Virginia Ed Strategies and rural local education agencies (LEAs) in Virginia are implementing a project using a networked improvement community (NIC) of Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 teachers to incorporate social-emotional learning (SEL) factors of academic self-efficacy and growth mindset into lesson plans for teaching career readiness math competencies. During Year 1, the project established Memos of Understanding with 18 school divisions in southwest and southside Virginia, which enabled math teachers within these divisions to submit applications to participate in the project. At the end of Year 1, December 2017, the project had a 38-member teacher cohort across 25 schools. By the end of Year 2 (January 1 - December 31, 2018), the cohort included 30 teachers (19 middle school teachers and 11 high school teachers) across 20 schools (12 middle schools and 8 high schools) within 16 participating divisions (several teachers dropped out of the project in Year 2 and a few teachers were added). During Year 3 (January 1 - December 31, 2019), several more teachers dropped out of the project, resulting in 26 teachers (17 middle school and 9 high school) across 18 schools within 15 participating divisions. Sixteen of the 26 teachers are located in the southside region, with the remaining 10 teachers located in the southwest region of Virginia One of the i3 requirements is to have an external evaluation conducted of the project; development grants must include both an implementation study and an impact study. To fulfill this requirement, Virginia Ed Strategies hired ICF to conduct an independent evaluation of the RMIN project throughout the 4-year period. The evaluation includes three components: a formative study to provide ongoing feedback about participants' reactions, learning, behaviors, and results; an implementation study focusing on how well the structural and programmatic aspects of the RMIN project are implemented, as well as facilitating or impeding factors; and an impact study to determine the extent to which the project impacts high-need students' math achievement. Previously in Year 2, the evaluation team recruited 10 comparison teachers across rural Virginia school divisions who were also teaching either Pre-Algebra or Algebra 1 (no school has both a participating and comparison teacher). The purpose of this report is to summarize key findings from the impact study. The primary audience is the RMIN project staff at Virginia Ed Strategies; secondary audiences include ED and other interested stakeholders. Although the impact study was designed originally to include students from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years, the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020 led to school closings and no administration of the statewide Standards of Learning (SOL) math assessment. Therefore, the impact study is based solely on the one year of SOL data. Findings are presented for the impact data and framed by the evaluation questions. Conclusions are presented below. Impact on student achievement. The one-year program impact on students' SOL scores was estimated and the results did not find evidence that the RMIN program significantly improved students' SOL performance. The program impact from the Pre-Algebra sample was negative, but it was not statistically significant, and the effect size was small. The program impact from the Algebra I analysis was positive but not statistically significant, and the effect size was small.