Chapter 6: Propensity Score Analysis for Examining The Effects of a District-level Intervention: A Model for School-University Partnerships

This chapter describes an ongoing research-practice partnership between leaders in a public school district and a university-based research team comprising the co-authors of this chapter. District leaders initiated the partnership because they and other local stakeholders were concerned about an apparent achievement gap on state tests between students enrolled in two district-wide programs: a traditional program taught through English and a foreign language immersion program.1 Specifically, students in the foreign language immersion program consistently outperformed their peers in the English-only programat all elementary grade levels assessed on the state tests and in both subject areas (math and English language arts). Thegoal of the partnership was to examine state test score data for the purpose of guiding policy decisions related to the effectiveness of the foreign language immersion program compared to the traditional English-only program. The process described here emerged from the district’s need to use empirical evidence to understand the underlying causes for those observed gaps.