EPIC is at the NCARE conference! Excited to support and participate in education research in NC.
27.02.2026 15:55
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EPIC is at the NCARE conference! Excited to support and participate in education research in NC.
Recently I shared a new pub from me & colleagues on student absenteeism. To accompany this, we've also produced a one-pager to share key takeaways in brief!
Article: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
One-pager: epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...
@sarahcfuller.bsky.social @kevincbastian.bsky.social
The Relationship Between Student Attendance and Achievement, Pre- and Post-COVID journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Here’s a new perspective piece at EdNC focused on full time principal internships in NC. Good news is that the state has decided to fund them for the 2025-26 year! But the issue—questions about the importance of the internship and funding for it—will still be there. www.ednc.org/perspective-...
Excited to share this EdNC perspective piece on the TA to teacher pipeline! www.ednc.org/perspective-...
@edweek.org @nctq.bsky.social @ncpublicschools.bsky.social
4: Perhaps most importantly, beginning teachers with TA experience have significantly higher retention rates.
Overall, this study highlights that former TAs are making positive contributions to NC schools. These findings have implications for district recruitment, hiring, and support efforts.
3: Early career teachers with TA experience have similar evaluation ratings and value added estimates as other early career teachers. Among early career teachers with an emergency teaching license, former TAs are more effective.
2: Former TAs possess many characteristics valued by districts. For example, over 50% of beginning teachers with TA experience are a person of color. Nearly 20% have a special education teaching license.
1: We found that former TAs make up a meaningful percentage of the beginning teacher workforce. Over a 3 yr period, 17% of beginning teachers in NC had worked as a TA first.
Each year NC public schools employs more than 20,000 teaching assistants (TAs). Those individuals may be a promising source of future teachers. With that in mind, we investigated the TA to teacher pipeline in NC. Four interesting findings emerged: epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...
Lastly, interns moved into a school administrator position in a high need school more quickly if they interned in a high need school (even accounting for this being the same school).
Characteristics of internship placements and mentor principals predict movements into administrator roles.
Interns moved into an administrator position more quickly if they were male, in a competitive scholarship loan program, were coming from a rural location, and if their mentor principal was higher rated.
A few key findings:
A meaningful number of interns do not enter a school administrator position. 7 years after the completion of a principal internship roughly 65% of interns are predicted to have become an administrator.
I am excited to see this work in print! With colleagues Tim Drake and Andrew Otte we used data from NC to assess how characteristics of principal interns and their internship experiences predict movement into a school administrator position. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Shout out to @epic-unc.bsky.social colleagues Rachel Rana and @mrosie.bsky.social for their presentations today at the NC Learning Research Network session! @ncpublicschools.bsky.social @ehutt.bsky.social @t-h-a-d.bsky.social
Very excited to release our annual evaluation report for the NC Principal Fellows program. We look forward to continuing to work with NCPFP to provide data and evidence that fuels program improvement and the leadership pipeline in NC. epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...
Thanks to NCDPI for their partnership and insights throughout this work!
With the end of pandemic relief funding (ESSER cliff), districts may be unable to retain the same number of support personnel. Keep in mind there are still serious concerns with student achievement and attendance and support personnel benefit these outcomes.
The number of social workers in NC public schools has increased by 27 percent since the 2020 school year. Pandemic relief funding (eg ESSER) has played a big role in this increase, especially in urban districts.
NC public schools have more counselors and social workers than prior to the pandemic and the ratios of these personnel to students have increased. That’s good news for schools working to meet whole child needs AND in spite of increased attrition for counselors and social workers in recent years.
Excited to release, with coauthors Camille Mikkelsen and @sarahcfuller.bsky.social, a new research brief on NC’s support personnel workforce (counselors, social workers, school psychologists) through the pandemic epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...
A few key findings:
Thank you!!
Adding me to the education policy researchers would be much appreciated!
Not currently but very open to that possibility. We’ve been pushing to have some initial results in time for the legislative session in TX.
5) Again, this is initial work that needs replication and on-going analyses. But important to show that investments in high quality and accessible teacher preparation show early returns.
3) 1st year teachers who completed a paid residency perform comparably to other 1st year teachers in math and are much more effective in reading.
4) Paid residents are also more likely to return for a second year of teaching in TX.
2) Mentor teachers are 5 % points more likely to return to their school in the year after hosting a paid resident.
1) Student achievement is higher in classrooms with a mentor teacher and paid resident. In math, this is due to K-12 schools and EPPs selecting more effective teachers. In reading, there is evidence that hosting a paid resident modestly boosts achievement.
New (and early) work from EPIC on paid teacher residency programs in TX epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u.... Much thanks to coauthors @sarahcfuller.bsky.social and Andrew Otte. Several key findings stand out:
Excited to be part of this work with @tswid.bsky.social and @sarahcfuller.bsky.social. Important to think about school attendance and how to promote learning in and out of school.