Andrew Calvin Porter Dean George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education

Education
1963: B.S., Education, Indiana State University
1965: M.S., Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1967: Ph.D., Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Professional Biography
Dr. Porter began his academic career on the faculty at Michigan State University, where he co-directed the Institute for Research on Teaching and served as associate dean for Research and Graduate Study.  During this time, he also took three years’ leave from MSU to serve as a Visiting Scholar at the National Institute of Education, where he was the chief of the Methodology and Measurement Division and Associate Director in charge of the Basic Skills Group.

From 1988 to 2003, he served as professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directed the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. In 2003, he joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University, where he was the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development and served as director of the University’s Learning Sciences Institute.

Dr. Porter is a former President of the American Educational Research Association (2001) and was elected a member of the National Academy of Education in 1994, where he has been Vice President since 2005. He is a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies.

He is a present or past member of a dozen scholarly editorial and advisory boards, including American Educational Researcher, Educational Researcher, and Teachers College Record.  He is the author or co-author of 39 book chapters, 60 scholarly articles, and dozens of technical reports.

Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Porter has published widely on psychometrics, student assessment, education indicators, and research on teaching. One line of work centers on teachers’ decisions about what to teach, which includes curriculum policies and their effects on students’ opportunity to learn. Currently, his research is supported by the National Science Foundation: he is co-director, System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators; co-principal investigator, Meta-Analysis Study of the Effects of Teacher Professional Development with a Math or Science Content Focus on Improving Teaching and Learning; senior researcher, How Does Induction and Continuing Professional Development Affect Middle School Mathematics Teachers’ Instruction and Student Achievement? Teacher Professional Continuum (TPC). Dr. Porter is also currently principal investigator on a Wallace Foundation-supported project to develop and test an education leadership performance assessment

Selected Publications
Porter, A.C., Smithson, J.L. Blank, R. & Zeidner, T. (2007). Alignment as a teacher variable. Applied Measurement in Education.

Porter, A. C. (2006). Curriculum assessment. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli, & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research, pp. 141-159. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Porter, A.C., Linn, R.L., & Trimble C.S. (2005, Winter). The effects of state decisions about NCLB adequate yearly progress targets. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice,  24(4), (pp. 32-39).

Porter, A. C., Blank, R., Smithson, J., & Osthoff, E. (2005, May). Place-based randomized trials to test the effects on instructional practices of a mathematics/science professional development program for teachers. Annals of the AmericanAcademy of Political and Social Science, 599, 147-175.

Porter, A. C. (2005). Prospects for school reform and closing the achievement gap. In C.A. Dwyer (Ed.), Measurement and research in the accountability era (pp. 59-95). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Porter, A. C., Chester, M. D., & Schlesinger, M. D. (2004, June). Framework for an effective assessment and accountability program: The Philadelphia example. Teachers College Record, 106(6), 1358-1400.

Porter, A. C., Garet, M. S., Desimone, L. M., & Birman, B. F. (2003, Spring). Providing effective professional development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program. Science Educator, 12(1), 23-40.

Porter, A. C. (2002, October). Measuring the content of instruction: Uses in research and practice. Educational Researcher, 31(7), 3-14.

Porter, A. C., & Gamoran, A. (2002). Progress and challenges for large-scale studies. In A. C. Porter & A. Gamoran (Eds.), Methodological advances in cross-national surveys of educational achievement (pp. 105-131). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.