John F. Pane is Distinguished Chair in Education Innovation and senior scientist in RAND Education. Pane researches the implementation and effectiveness of innovations in education, with a focus on personalized learning, education technology, math, and science. His expertise includes the application of experimental and rigorous quasi-experimental methods. He has led or co-led numerous experiments using individual-level or school-level random assignment, including a large-scale effectiveness trial of mathematics tutoring software in 147 schools in 51 school districts in seven states; and several efficacy experiment, including an experiment examining the effects of summer learning programs in five urban school districts. He also leads quasi-experimental evaluations of schools implementing personalized learning models, and of Investing in Innovation and Race to the Top District projects in rural Kentucky that are using technology to increase student readiness for college and careers.
Previously, he co-directed the Carnegie Mellon and RAND Traineeships in Methodology and Interdisciplinary Research (CMART), an IES postdoctoral training program, and led evaluations of a NSF math and science partnership and a school district's one-to-one laptop initiative, investigated data-driven decisionmaking practices in education, and studied the effects of the 2005 hurricanes on public school students in Louisiana.
Sponsors of his research have included the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the U.S. Army, the Heinz Endowments, and the Grable, Pittsburgh, and Benedum Foundations. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Selected Publications
Augustine, C. H., McCombs, J. S., Pane, J. F., Schwartz, H. L., Schweig, J., McEachin, A., & Siler-Evans, K., Learning from Summer: Effects of Voluntary Summer Learning Programs on Low-Income Urban Youth, RAND Corporation (RR-1557), 2016
John F. Pane, Elizabeth D. Steiner, Matthew D. Baird and Laura S. Hamilton, Continued Progress: Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning, RAND Corporation (RR-1365), 2015
John F. Pane, Beth Ann Griffin, Daniel F. McCaffrey, Rita Karam, "Effectiveness of Cognitive Tutor Algebra I at Scale," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(2):127-144, 2014
John F. Pane, Daniel F. McCaffrey, Mary Ellen Slaughter, Jennifer L. Steele, and Gina S. Ikemoto, "An Experiment to Evaluate the Efficacy of Cognitive Tutor Geometry," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3(3):254-281, 2010
John F. Pane, Valerie L. Williams, Stuart S. Olmsted, Kun Yuan, Eleanor Spindler, Mary E. Slaughter, Math Science Partnership of Southwest Pennsylvania: Measuring Progress Towards Goals, RAND Corporation (MG-857-AIU), 2009
John F. Pane, Daniel F. McCaffrey, Nidhi Kalra, Annie J. Zhou, "Effects of Student Displacement in Louisiana During the First Academic Year After the Hurricanes of 2005," Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 13(2-3):168-211, 2008
Julie A. Marsh, John F. Pane, Laura S. Hamilton, Making Sense of Data-Driven Decision Making: Evidence from Recent RAND Research, RAND Corporation (OP-170), 2006
Kerri A. Kerr, John F. Pane, Heather Barney, Quaker Valley Digital School District: Early Effects and Plans for Future Evaluation, RAND Corporation (TR-107), 2003
