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Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the RAND Corporation provided substantial funding to promote recovery and evidence-based policymaking in the U.S. Gulf States region. In 2006, the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute opened in New Orleans with the purpose of helping to solve region-specific challenges and improve the well-being of our new neighbors. Our early impacts were in improving policy related to flood insurance, coastal and water management, and emergency preparedness. What has been perhaps less visible are our research efforts in other areas, such as education, health, and community resilience. So in this edition of the newsletter, I'd like to focus on one of our education projects that is informing policy to improve our community.
For 45 years, RAND Education has been providing objective research to make educational policies and practices more effective. Our early education work in the Gulf States addressed areas of immediate concern, including the trauma students underwent through Hurricane Katrina and the ways in which schools and programs could help them recover. The associate director of RAND Education, Heather L. Schwartz, is a permanent member of our New Orleans office, where she is actively engaged in improving education in the Gulf Coast states.
Today, I am pleased to highlight our work with a program that is helping New Orleans-area schools continue to improve. A team of RAND researchers, led by Kata Mihaly, Ph.D., is assessing how the Leading Educators program helps to increase student achievement. Leading Educators is a fellowship program that works with school districts to help highly effective teachers develop the leadership skills needed to mentor their peers and newer teachers. Early results from the study show that the program is having a positive effect for students in Louisiana. For this issue of the newsletter, Mihaly talks about the early findings of this study. The report and summary are available online. Additional 2016–2017 school year data will provide further insight into how the program positively affects teachers, schools, and students.
You might also be interested in some research we are conducting about mental health in our local community. New Orleans has seen an unfortunate and alarming increase in suicides in recent years. In a project funded entirely by RAND, Rajeev Ramchand, Ph.D. is partnering with the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office to identify factors related to suicide in the region to identify specific policies that might help reverse this tragic trend. Dr. Ramchand will be in New Orleans to present his methods and some initial findings at a luncheon on Friday, May 27, 2016. Please contact me if you are interested in attending.
All the best,
Gary Cecchine
Director of Research
RAND Gulf States Policy Institute
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