Brian Gill

Director for REL Mid-Atlantic
(617) 301-8962

About

Brian Gill serves as the Director for REL Mid-Atlantic, as well as lead for the Accountability Community of Practice partnership. Dr. Gill has worked closely with state and local education agencies, nonprofits, and funders in the Mid-Atlantic region for more than a decade, providing technical support, communicating research findings, and producing reports that have informed education policy in the region and beyond. He has established connections with dozens of policymakers and education stakeholders across all the states and several districts in the region and has extensive experience meeting their diverse needs, ranging from the refinement of accountability systems to the development of improved measures of school and educators’ performance. Dr. Gill can be contacted at RELMidAtlantic@mathematica.org.

Associated IES Content

Blog

A Solution for Promoting Accuracy and Equity in Measures of School Performance

The Every Student Succeeds Act requires that states identify low-performing schools for support and improvement based on schoolwide performance and the performance of demographic groups within schools. To do so, states employ a variety of measures that can be useful both for accountability and diagnostic purposes. But random variation plays a larger role in measurements from smaller student groups, reducing the measures' reliability. These measurements often bounce around randomly, increasing...
Date published:
Nov 07, 2024

About REL Mid-Atlantic

Regional Educational Lab (REL) Mid-Atlantic partners with key stakeholders in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to develop evidence that can inform consequential decisions about policy, programs, and practice.
report Descriptive Study

Stabilizing School Performance Indicators in New Jersey to Reduce the Effect of Random Error

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires states to use a variety of indicators, including standardized tests and attendance records, to designate schools for support and improvement based on schoolwide performance and the performance of groups of students within schools. Schoolwide and group-level performance indicators are also diagnostically relevant for district-level and school-level decisionmaking outside the formal accountability context. Like all measurements, performance indica...
Oct 21, 2024
report Descriptive Study

Aligning the University of the District of Columbia's program offerings with data on the local job market

This Ask an Expert analyzed projected job opportunities in the District of Columbia (DC) alongside the University of the District of Columbia's program offerings, assessing the alignment of those programs with future labor market demand. REL Mid-Atlantic compiles evidence in response to our partners' research-based education questions through its "Ask an Expert" service. Note: This product is presented as a memo, originally shared with Office of Education Through Employment Pathways in the Of...
Oct 14, 2024
Blog

Beyond the Scoreboard: Accountability for Processes Can Help Schools Make the Right Play

Data analytics have dramatically transformed many sports. For example, analytics in basketball have demonstrated that three-point shots are typically better than mid-range two-point shots despite being less likely to go in the hoop.
Date published:
Sep 25, 2024
Blog

ASPIRE to Improve Your Agency's School Performance Measures!

Measures of school performance--whether used for high-stakes accountability or for lower-stakes diagnostic purposes--have become increasingly complex and technical in the past three decades. State accountability systems that initially examined only student proficiency rates in reading and math now incorporate a wide range of additional measures, including achievement in other subjects, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, school climate, postsecondary readiness and enrollment, and student a...
Date published:
Feb 29, 2024
Blog

Some Schools Saw Their Climate Improve During Remote and Hybrid Instruction. What Should We Make of That?

Earlier this month, we released our report from a study of school climate in Pennsylvania, conducted in partnership with the Office of Safe Schools at the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). The report examined a handful of Pennsylvania schools that administered the state's (voluntary) school climate survey before, during, and after the 2020/21 school year, when schools had to operate much of the year remotely or in a hybrid mode that mixed remote and in-person instruction. Our partne...
Date published:
Aug 31, 2023
Blog

Illuminating School Performance Measures: Building a Brighter Flashlight

Attention to historically underserved student groups has long been a focus of federal accountability. In 2022, for the first time in three years, states had to identify low-performing schools, including those where particular subgroups of students are not meeting standards. Secretary Cardona, in an address in January of this year, framed the requirement as an opportunity to rethink accountability.
Date published:
Jun 14, 2023
report Descriptive Study

Stabilizing Subgroup Proficiency Results to Improve the Identification of Low-Performing Schools

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify schools with low-performing student subgroups for Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI). Random differences between students' true abilities and their test scores, also called measurement error, reduce the statistical reliability of the performance measures used to identify schools for these categorizations. Measurement error introduces a risk that the identified schools ar...
Feb 27, 2023
Blog

Measurement for School Improvement: The Peril and the Promise

In the wake of a pandemic that caused a nationwide nosedive in student achievement and disproportionate harms to students who were already disadvantaged, good measures of school performance may be more important than ever. States are now identifying low-performing schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for the first time in three years; bad performance measures can lead to identifying the wrong schools, undermining the efficacy of the accountability system. And good school perfor...
Date published:
Feb 21, 2023
Blog

The Next Frontier in School Accountability Measures: Improving Reliability and Subgroup Inclusion at the Same Time

For the first time in three years, states across the country are identifying low-performing schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). One of the long-recognized technical challenges in this process involves the reliability of the measures of school performance. Every performance measure has some random variation, but states want to identify the schools that really need support and improvement rather than those that had bad luck.
Date published:
Dec 19, 2022
Blog

Improving School Accountability Measures in the Wake of COVID-19: An Opportunity Borne of Necessity

School accountability requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) are back in force in 2022...
Date published:
Jun 21, 2022
Blog

States: Don't give up on measuring student growth for 2022 accountability!

For the past two years, in recognition of the educational disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) waived key requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act related to schools' accountability for performance. State assessments were canceled across the country in 2020; assessments (mostly) returned in 2021, but states were not required to use them to identify low-performing schools. But 2022 is a different story. ED has made clear not only that state assessme...
Date published:
Feb 18, 2022
resource Training Material

Changes in academic achievement in Pittsburgh Public Schools during remote instruction in the COVID-19 pandemic

After shifting to remote learning in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pittsburgh Public Schools sought assistance in analyzing how student achievement changed during the pandemic and how the change varied based on students' demographic characteristics. The district was also eager to understand how students' access and use online learning applications and how this varies across students, teachers, and schools. The REL helped analyze remote learning data to help school leaders an...
Dec 13, 2021
report Impact Study

Impacts of Home Visits on Students in District of Columbia Public Schools

This study examined the impacts of structured relationship-building teacher home visits conducted in grades 1-5 as part of a family engagement program in the District of Columbia Public Schools. Using a matched comparison group research design, the study measured the impacts of the home visits on student disciplinary incidents and attendance. The study found that a home visit before the start of the school year reduced the likelihood of a student having a disciplinary incident in that school ...
Dec 02, 2021
report Descriptive Study

Predicting Early Fall Student Enrollment in the School District of Philadelphia

Predicting incoming enrollment is an ongoing concern for the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and similar districts with school choice systems, substantial student mobility, or both. Inaccurate predictions can disrupt learning as districts adjust to enrollment fluctuations by reshuffling teachers and students well into the fall semester. This study compared the accuracy of four statistical techniques for predicting fall enrollment at the school-by-grade level, using data from prior years...
Oct 13, 2021
Blog

Making Sure School Performance Measures Provide the Right Diagnosis to improve Student Outcomes

Measuring school performance has been an important component of state and federal policies for two decades. Measures based exclusively on reading and math proficiency have given way to more complex and sophisticated approaches incorporating growth or value-added data as well as indicators of chronic absenteeism, college readiness, or school climate. Pundits and researchers continue to debate whether high-stakes accountability policies have led to improved school performance--and/or to u...
Date published:
Sep 21, 2021
report Descriptive Study

Using Promotion Power to Identify the Effectiveness of Public High Schools in the District of Columbia

This study estimated the promotion power of public high schools in the District of Columbia. Promotion power is a measure of school effectiveness that distinguishes a school's contributions to student outcomes from the contributions of the background characteristics of the students it serves. Promotion power scores are distinct from status measures such as graduation rate and college enrollment rate because they account for prior student achievement and other student background characteristic...
Sep 07, 2021
report Descriptive Study

Exploring the Potential Role of Staff Surveys in School Leader Evaluation

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory partnered with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to explore the potential use of teacher surveys in school leader evaluation. The DCPS evaluation system, like many others, currently consists of two components: an assessment on how well a school performs on a set of student achievement metrics (such as proficiency on standardized tests) and an assessment by a supervisor of the principal's leadership across multiple domains. Incorpor...
Aug 02, 2021
Blog

How School Districts Can Leverage Data in These Uncertain Times

This blog post extends some ideas offered in a spring 2020 post on district leaders' use of transparent data practices to promote accountability. This post describes ways leaders can use data to better support educators and students during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Educators are grappling with unprecedented challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these challenges, as of now, federal testing requirements have not been waived. Achievement scores from spring 2021 tests will be diffi...
Date published:
Feb 02, 2021
Blog

Reopening Schools While Mitigating COVID-19's Spread: How Many Days Should Students Attend?

Schools across the country face wrenchingly difficult decisions about reopening buildings for the upcoming school year in the midst of a pandemic that has not been defeated. Even so, school buildings cannot remain closed indefinitely. The educational costs of the spring school closures have surely been large, and no one thinks that even the most successful remote-learning approaches can fully replace classroom instruction. It is in this context that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently...
Date published:
Jul 02, 2020
resource Training Material

Considerations for Reopening Pennsylvania Schools

The Pennsylvania Department of Education created a guidance document that outlines options for fall 2020 school openings while addressing COVID-19 infection risk, educational impact, and community concerns, with attention to equity throughout. The REL provided analytic support that includes the modeling of COVID-19 infection spread under different approaches to opening and operating schools; gathering perspectives of key community stakeholders; and incorporating available evidence on the like...
Jun 01, 2020
Blog

Using Transparency to Create Accountability When School Buildings Are Closed and Tests Are Cancelled

Schools across the country have closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and states have cancelled their spring assessments. These cancellations mark the first interruption of the annual testing cycle since the No Child Left Behind Act passed nearly 20 years ago. Annual assessments have been the foundation of accountability systems for schools for the past two decades. But some newer elements of accountability created in conjunction with the Every Student Succeeds Act have also bee...
Date published:
Apr 07, 2020
Blog

Real-Time Feedback Makes an IMPACT

Principals and assistant principals play a key role in improving student outcomes, but assessing leaders' effectiveness is hard and finding the right measure takes time. School leaders influence students in complex and indirect ways, making it difficult to measure these effects. The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Mid-Atlantic has worked with school leaders in the mid-Atlantic region to help them enrich the learning environment for students (read about our work with education sta...
Date published:
Dec 09, 2019
Blog

The Future of School Accountability: Not Set in Stone

When Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, one of its aims was to restore some state authority over school accountability systems, in response to criticism that federal requirements had become too prescriptive . Notably, ESSA permits states to choose among new measures of school performance or student outcomes to complement existing measures of reading and math proficiency. Although every state now has an approved ESSA accountability plan, for many states, thes...
Date published:
Nov 04, 2019
Blog

Multiple Measures Are for Principal Evaluation, Too: Using Teacher Surveys to Better Understand Principal Performance

Evaluating the performance of school principals can be challenging. As we noted in previous posts, principals' roles are complex and multi-faceted. Principals are expected to run building operations, implement state and district policies, manage relationships with parents and the community, and ensure effective instructional practices, thereby promoting academic progress in their students. Assessing their performance in all of these different roles isn't easy. A supervisor from the central of...
Date published:
Jul 08, 2019

FY2018

FY2018 Education Systems and Broad Reform Peer Review Panel
Blog

RELevant: A Blog in the Service of Education

Improving school performance requires data-driven decision making at all levels, from the classroom through local and state education agencies; from early childhood through higher education. Effective data-driven decision making requires that the data provided to educators be relevant--useful to the decision maker--and diagnostic--informative for the decision at hand. And while great progress has been made, it's not always clear how to connect research to practice. REL Mid-Atlantic at Mathem...
Date published:
Jan 11, 2018

FY2017

FY2017 Education Systems and Broad Reform Peer Review Panel
report Descriptive Study

The content, predictive power, and potential bias in five widely used teacher observation instruments

School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to student achievement growth and instruments for observing and rating instructional practice. Many school districts and states are considering adopting co...
Nov 01, 2016

FY2016

FY2016 Education Systems and Broad Reform Peer Review Panel

FY2015

Single-Session Panels
report Descriptive Study

Alternative Student Growth Measures for Teacher Evaluation: Implementation Experiences of Early-Adopting Districts

Alternative student growth measures for teacher evaluation: Implementation experiences of early-adopting districts: State requirements to include student achievement growth in teacher evaluations are prompting the development of alternative ways to measure growth in grades and subjects not covered by state assessments. These alternative growth measures use two primary approaches: (1) value-added models (VAMs) applied to end-of-course and commercial assessments; and (2) student learning object...
Jul 01, 2015
report Descriptive Study

Changes in Financial Aid and Student Enrollment at Historically Black Colleges and Universities after the Tightening of PLUS Credit Standards

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in financial aid and student enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) after the U.S. Department of Education increased the credit history requirements necessary to obtain Parental Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS). The study used institution-level data to examine financial aid and enrollment changes at four-year non-profit institutions in 2012/13 (the first full academic year after the new credit standards we...
Apr 01, 2015
report Descriptive Study

Professional Practice, Student Surveys, and Value-Added: Multiple Measures of Teacher Effectiveness in the Pittsburgh Public Schools

Responding to federal and state prompting, school districts across the country are implementing new teacher evaluation systems that aim to increase the rigor of evaluation ratings, better differentiate effective teaching, and support personnel and staff development initiatives that promote teacher effectiveness and ultimately improve student achievement. Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has been working for the last several years to develop richer and more-comprehensive measures of teacher eff...
Jul 01, 2014
report Descriptive Study

Using Alternative Student Growth Measures for Evaluating Teacher Performance: What the Literature Says

States are increasingly interested in including measures of student achievement growth, or "value- added," in evaluating teachers. Annual state assessments, however, which are the typical measure of student growth, usually cover only reading and math teachers and only in grades 4-8. These state assessments thus cannot generally be used to measure contributions to student achievement growth for early elementary school teachers, most high school teachers, and teachers of other subjects. As a co...
Sep 01, 2013