On March 23-25, 2023, members of Relay’s research team co-presented a paper at the annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP). AEFP facilitates communication among those in education finance and policy, including academicians, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, administrators, and teachers, via their annual conference, journal, mentoring programs, newsletter, and more.

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Jung-In Soh and Andrew Lumpe co-presented a paper titled “Estimating a Non-Traditional Teacher Preparation Program’s Effects on Teacher Diversity and Student Outcomes: Evidence from New York City.” They co-presented alongside researchers from Education Analytics. In this paper, the researchers examined whether Relay Graduate School of Education could improve teacher diversity in New York City Department of Education schools and the degree to which the Black teachers trained by the program could produce better outcomes for Black students. Using within-student variation in teacher assignment among the New York City public school students from 2013 to 2018, three sets of key findings were presented:

• The New York City Department of Education teacher work force became more racially diverse in recent years; even in that context, first-year teachers trained by the Relay program were more diverse than those from other programs.
• Black students were more likely to be taught by Black teachers if teachers were trained by Relay, suggesting that the program improved the chances that Black students would learn from a teacher who matches their racial background, at some point in their education.
• Teachers of the same race who were trained by Relay were more effective in terms of improving students’ attendance and suspension outcomes compared to those trained by non-Relay teachers. This suggests that the presence of same-race teachers alone does not deliver the most impactful outcomes- there is also an impact from the kind of training that teachers receive.

These findings may be of interest to teacher preparation programs, and points to where more research is needed - for example, identifying the particular ways that teacher diversity affects student outcomes. You can read more about the study's findings in the blog Better Attendance, Fewer Suspensions, More Teachers of Color - Findings from Recent Research.

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Reception for the research was positive as there were over 75 people in a packed room. There were many questions and positive comments during and after the session.  We were able to attend other presentations and poster sessions during the conference where we heard about pathways to becoming a teacher, teacher retention, teacher diversity, and educator preparation programs. We also made connections to other researchers where we learned about state report cards for educator preparation programs and making data requests to states for matching student outcome data to teacher effectiveness. 

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As a Research team, we have gained a lot from partnering with Education Analytics and look forward to more projects together in the future.