Mathematica Researcher to Talk About KIPP Effectiveness

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Christina Clark Tuttle

Christina Clark Tuttle, senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, N.J., will deliver a lecture Friday, Nov. 16, titled “Understanding the Effectiveness of KIPP: Factors Related to Impacts” on the University of Arkansas campus.

Tuttle will speak at noon in Room 343 of the Graduate Education Building. Her lecture is part of the series sponsored by the department of education reform. The lecture is free and open to the public. Visit the lecture page today to RSVP for lunch.

Tuttle specializes in the design and implementation of rigorous impact evaluations of educational interventions, particularly involving random assignment. She has several years of experience evaluating charter schools and other school choice initiatives. She is the project director of an evaluation of the impacts of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) network of charter schools on student outcomes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, involving random assignment. KIPP operates schools in Blytheville and Helena-West Helena.

This study, funded by an Investing in Innovation scale-up grant from the U.S. Department of Education, also includes an implementation analysis related to leadership development programs at KIPP.

Tuttle is also deputy project director of an ongoing random assignment evaluation focused specifically on KIPP middle schools. For the U.S. Department of Education, Tuttle serves as the topic area expert on charter schools for the national evaluation of Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants, and she was deputy project director of a recent nationwide random assignment evaluation of charter schools.

Links to some papers she co-authored, including “Student Selection, Attrition and Replacement in KIPP Middle Schools,” “Student Characteristics and Achievement in 22 KIPP Middle Schools” and “Who Benefits from KIPP” are available on the lecture RSVP page.