Ph.D. and M.S. in economics, Duke University; B.S. in policy analysis, Cornell University
Kata Mihaly is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. She leads a number of studies that evaluate education programs using rigorous methods, including randomized control trials, regression discontinuity, propensity score matching methods, and other quasi-experimental evaluation designs. She is particularly interested in the topic of teacher quality and the impact of programs designed to support teachers. Her recently published work reviews the literature on value-added model design and examines how value-added model specifications impact the rankings of teacher preparation programs.
Mihaly has worked on developing statistical methods for combining multiple measures of teaching for the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She recently led a four-year randomized control trial study under RELSW examining the impact of providing a feedback checklist for principals to use with teachers following formal observations on teacher observation scores and student achievement. She is currently a Principal Investigator for a grant from IES to study the impact of labeling teachers ineffective or minimally effective in a formal evaluation setting using a regression discontinuity design.
She has been invited to provide technical assistance on the issue of teacher and preparation program evaluation by a number of districts and states. She was certified in WWC standards in September 2008. Mihaly earned her Ph.D. in economics from Duke University.
Kata Mihaly, Heather L. Schwartz, Isaac M. Opper, Geoffrey Grimm, Luis Rodriguez, and Louis T. Mariano , "Impacts of a checklist on the feedback principals provide to teachers after observations," IES Report, (REL 2017– ), 2017
Cory Koedel, Kata Mihaly, and Jonah E. Rockoff, "Value-Added Modeling: A Review," Economics of Education Review, 47(1), 2015
Heather Schwartz, Kata Mihaly, and Breann Gala, "Encouraging residential moves to opportunity neighborhoods: An experiment testing incentives offered to housing voucher recipients," Housing Policy Debate, 27(2), 2015
