News from WCER
Wisconsin Partnership Program Awards $1M to One City Schools and UW-Madison Education Research Team
October 17, 2019 | By Janet L. Kelly
A team of early childhood educators and university evaluators, including WCER's Beth Graue and Tenah Hunt, won a $1 million community impact grant from the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The five-year grant will be used to train teachers, document and evaluate Madison’s innovative One City Schools. Graue and Hunt will work with One City to develop and implement a multilayered professional development and evaluation process.
New Wisconsin-Minnesota Education Partnership Wins $6.3M Federal Award
October 16, 2019 | By Janet L. Kelly
A new collaboration of Wisconsin and Minnesota education researchers formed to support education priorities in each state has won a five-year, $6.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The overall goal of the project, directed by Steven Kimball and WCER colleague Alisia Moutry, as well as the University of Minnesota's Kim Gibbons and Education Analytics' Ernest Morgan, is to improve the academic achievement of elementary and secondary school students in the two-state region by advancing the use of evidence-based practices.
WCER Experts Explain Critical Intersection between Education, Health
October 8, 2019 | By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications
University researchers and evaluators versed in rural schools, the community-school model and the schooling of Native American children in Wisconsin shared their expertise and latest evidence-based findings recently in a public hearing at the state Capitol focused on the critical intersection between education and health.
MSAN Student Conference Aims to Empower
October 8, 2019 | By WCER Communications
The annual gathering, now in its 20th year, aims to develop student leaders dedicated to ending racial disparities in achievement and opportunity.
Middle School Absences Send Important Signal
September 25, 2019 | By Madison Education Partnership
A new report from the Madison Education Partnership finds that rather than causing students to do poorly in school, unexcused absences may be signals of significant challenges in students’ lives.
WCER launches $1.5 million internship study of six Historically Black Colleges and Universities
September 19, 2019 | By Lynn Armitage
The Center for Research on College to Workforce Transitions (CCWT)—a project at UW‒Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research—is collaborating with the United Negro College Fund’s Career Pathways Initiative and a vocational psychologist to study internship programs at six HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) that have a high population of STEM graduates.
Increasing graduate student debt affects African American students most, study finds
August 15, 2019 | By WCER Communications
A new study shows low-income and African American graduate students increasingly face a double-edged sword of advanced-degree promise and peril: better-than-average income returns on graduate and professional degrees but levels of debt to earn those degrees that outpace the debt borne by white students.
What I learned when I studied six Chicago schools transforming to personalized learning environments
August 11, 2019 | By Rich Halverson
As a guest author in the newsletter Getting Smart, University of Wisconsin School of Education Professor Rich Halverson describes the benefits of personalized learning he witnessed during a study of six Chicago public schools involved with LEAP Innovations, a national organization that connects innovation and education to transform how students learn.
WIDA goes global
August 1, 2019 | By Lynn Armitage
In 2008, the Shanghai American School contacted Timothy Boals, executive director of the WIDA Consortium at WCER, about using WIDA’s acclaimed research-based standards and assessments to help English-language learners. “A teacher there had used our language development tools in the States and recommended them,” Boals recalls the conversation that unofficially launched the WIDA International School Consortium. Today, WIDA’s international program has pioneered the improvement of teaching and learning for multilingualism around the world. It has grown into a worldwide ELL network of more than 400 accredited preK-12 international schools where English is the language of instruction, in more than 100 countries.
Study Shows Power of Refocusing Student Stress in Middle School Transition
July 29, 2019 | By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications
A new study by education researchers at the University of Wisconsin−Madison shows that proactively addressing students’ anxieties with clear and cost-effective messaging early in the school year can lead to a lasting record of higher grades, better attendance, and fewer behavioral problems for sixth graders embarking on their stressful first year of middle school.
‘We Care for Dane Kids’ Team, Including WCER’s Graue, Wins 2nd Place, $400K to Raise Family Incomes
July 3, 2019 | By Karen Rivedal
A campus-community partnership including WCER’s Beth Graue is one of two teams from UW-Madison to win funding in a national competition aimed at developing innovative ideas to expand and strengthen the U.S. middle class.
$1.8 Million Grant Expands Study of College Internships & How Students of Color Enter Workforce
June 25, 2019 | By Janet L. Kelly
Over the next two years, a team of education researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison will use a new $1.8 million grant to learn significantly more about college internships and how students of color enter the workforce from college. A CCWT research team led by Matthew T. Hora will add six institutions serving students of color to expand Hora's College Internship Study to the first nationwide investigation of the topic.
Apply for Funding Up to $30K to Study Early Childhood Education by July 15
June 12, 2019
The Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (CRECE) is offering two funding opportunities of up to $30K each to UW--Madison faculty and research staff interested in studying early childhood education. Applications are due July15 with more information available here: https://crece.wceruw.org/funding-opportunities/
New Study Finds Successful Student Internships Require Careful Design, Equitable Access
June 10, 2019 | By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications
A new working paper co-authored by Matthew T. Hora based on student experiences at three diverse colleges describes what works in successful college internships. It also provides demographic data on students who take internships, identifies key barriers for those students unable to participate in these on-the-job learning experiences and provides a model for developing better internships.
OPINION: Is This Minority Group Too Small to Have a Voice on Campus?
June 6, 2019 | By Matthew Wolfgram, Bailey Smolarek
The Center for Research on College to Workforce Transitions' Matthew Wolfgram and Bailey Smolarek penned an article for The Hechinger Report about the educational experiences of HMoob (Hmong)-American students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Their study found the students' experiences are influenced and organized into spaces of belonging and exclusion, and that this geography of campus had consequences for students’ well-being, career development and educational attainment.
