Andy Porter

Biography

Andy Porter served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and George and Diane Weiss Professor from 2007 to 2014. He began his academic career on the faculty at Michigan State University (1967–1988), 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 created and was first chief of the Methodology and Measurement Division and later associate director in charge of the Basic Skills Group.

From 1988 to 2003, he served as Anderson-Bascon 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.

His research on teacher decision-making created the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) tools for measuring content and content alignment as well as teacher log procedures. He is senior author of the VAL-ED assessment of school leadership. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, recipient of the AERA Distinguished Contributions to Education Research Award, Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies, past-President of the American Education Research Association, and was for eight years a member of the National Assessment Governing Board.

He is a present or past member of a dozen scholarly editorial and advisory boards, including American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, and Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. He is the author or co-author of 46 book chapters, 84 scholarly articles, dozens of technical reports, and one book.

Ph.D. (Educational Psychology) University of Wisconsin, 1967
M.S. (Educational Psychology) University of Wisconsin, 1965
B.S. (Education) Indiana State University, 1963

Psychometrics
Student assessment
Education indicators
Research on teaching

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, he directs the Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) supported by the Institute for Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Polikoff, M. S., & Porter, A. C. (2014). Instructional alignment as a measure of teaching quality. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 399–416. (Most read article in an AERA Publication in 2014.)

Porter, A. C., Yang, R., Hwang, J., McMaken, J., & Rorison, J. (February 2014). The effects of scholarship amount on yield and success for master’s students in education. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 7(2), 166–182.

Desimone, L. M., Hochberg, E., Porter, A. C., Polikoff, M. S., Schwartz, R., & Johnson, L. J. (2014). Formal and informal mentoring: Complementary, compensatory, or consistent? Journal of Teacher Education, 65(2), 88–110. (Received the best publication on teacher education award for 2015 from Association of Teacher Educators)

Porter, A. C., Polikoff, M. S., Barghaus, K. M., & Yang, R. (2013). Constructing aligned assessments: Using automated test construction. Educational Researcher, 42(8), 415–423.

Porter, A., McMaken, J., Hwang, J., & Yang, R. (April 2011). Common Core standards: The new U.S. intended curriculum. Educational Researcher, 40(3), 103–116; (May 2011). Assessing the Common Core standards: Opportunity for improving measures of instruction. Educational Researcher, 40(4), 186–188.

Related News

All News

GW’s nonwhite student graduation rate lags behind most peer schools: data

In the Media | The GW Hatchet , November 11, 2024

Topics

Higher Education

Andrew Porter suggests that elite universities with lower acceptance rates often minimize racial graduation rate disparities by selecting students who are the best academic "fit" and fostering a "sense of belonging" through significant investments in support systems that address both academic and emotional challenges specific to nonwhite students.

Journal Editorial Boards

Teachers College Record
Editorial Advisory Board