Meyer, R.H. (2001). An
evaluation of the effectiveness of the Urban Systemic Initiative and other
academic reforms in Texas: Statistical models for analyzing large-scale
datasets. Report prepared for the National Science Foundation. Madison:
Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
The paper stems from the
analysis of a large-scale data set consisting of all students tested as part
of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) as a basis for evaluating
the effectiveness of the Urban Systemic Initiative (USI) as well as general
academic reforms in Texas between 1994 and 2000. Both a micro-level of
analysis (focusing on student achievement data) and a macro-level analysis
(focusing on districts) is employed. By using two scales (the Texas
Learning Index and the Rasch scale), Meyer finds that conclusions regarding
the effectiveness of systemic reform initiatives are sensitive to the scale
used to measure them.