Instructional Variation and Student Achievement in a Standards-Based Education District

This paper, part of a larger study of the links between instructional variation and variation in performance on standards-based assessment, reports on the relations between examination results and instructional variation in a diverse New York City school district. The district has put in place an educational improvement system founded on intensive, school-based professional development that is carefully related to a preferred framework for teaching literacy. This study provides strong evidence that the school district’s school-based professional development program improves teaching quality for diverse schools in ways that affect students’ achievement scores.