Media Contact:
Anna Turnage, College of Education, 919/755-1677

Nov. 25, 2003

Friday Institute Wins Grant for No Child Left Behind Evaluation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded $431,500 to The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University to evaluate the “Looking at North Carolina Educational Technology (LANCET)” project.

The project will use experimental, quasi-experimental and case-study designs to assess the implementation of the state’s IMPACT model and its effects on schools, teaching practices and student achievement. IMPACT provides for the necessary personnel, resources, access, professional development and student instruction to produce technologically literate students by the eighth grade. The project team consists of researchers from NC State’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, including principal investigator Dr. Ellen Vasu, co-principal investigator Dr. Jason Osborne, Dr. Alan Foley, Dr. Jane Steelman and Dr. Amy Overbay, as well as Dr. Lisa Grable, director of the Learning Technologies Resources Center.

The Friday Institute, being built by NC State’s College of Education, is a dynamic research and outreach community that puts advanced technology, academic rigor and creative thinking at the service of the state’s children. The building is scheduled to open in 2005 adjacent to Centennial Campus Middle School on NC State’s Centennial Campus.

Faculty members are working with 11 elementary and middle schools across the state to evaluate the effectiveness of the IMPACT model. The team will partner with SAS Institute, the Cary-based software company, to assess the IMPACT model’s success. The LANCET grant will further that assessment.

The team and project evaluators at each school will measure the effect of the IMPACT model’s technology-integration program on student learning and achievement. Evaluators will make their assessments using statistical and observational data such as students’ grades, test scores, and student, teacher, and administrator behavior and attitudes toward technology resources.

Both grants were awarded to help the state prepare its schools for No Child Left Behind legislation, which requires that public schools have 100 percent of students at grade level by the spring of 2014.

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