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Relationships Between Teachers, School Staff, and Student Outcomes

The AERA Research Grant program, with funding from the National Science Foundation, is funding a research project to examine the relationship between teachers and school-based staff, and student outcomes. The project was proposed by and is being implemented by the Research Branch of the MLDSC. The principal investigator is MLDSC staff member, Dr. David Blazar, a faculty member at the University of Maryland College Park, College of Education. The project began in July 2019 and runs through June 2021.

The central purpose of the research project is to identify the characteristics of teachers and school-based staff that most benefits student outcomes and provide guidance on decisions related to hiring and retention of staff in the state. The project builds from the recent “teacher like me” literature to examine specifically whether access to teachers and school-based staff of the same race or ethnicity of students improves short and longer-term outcomes. Researchers will conduct advanced statistical analyses using data from the MLDS, including workforce data on teachers and school staff, and enrollment and outcome data on students.

This is the first time that the AERA Research Grants program has funded work using state longitudinal data. In the past, all funded projects through this grant program had used survey data collected by the Institute of Education Sciences.