Tier 4 evidence: ESSA’s hidden gem 

Now that policy makers across the country have begun to implement their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plans, they must decide how best to meet the law’s requirements for the use of evidence-based educational practices. To date, most have focused on one part of the law in particular: The lowest-performing schools must implement improvement strategies that have already been shown to be effective — that is, with strong (Tier 1), moderate (Tier 2), or promising (Tier 3) evidence that they “work.” 

But if state leaders aim to build stronger connections among research, policy, and practice, the best opportunity to do so comes from the parts of the law that allow states and districts to invest in Tier 4 strategies: programs and practices that are informed by research and seem reasonably likely to succeed, but don’t yet have the kind of evidence that would place them in Tiers 1 to 3. For example, such strategies might include new models for teacher-led professional development, reducing exclusionary discipline, or drug and violence prevention. They may not be listed in the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse, but when implemented, evaluated, and refined, they may very well prove to be effective.  

At the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, we’ve had great success using a Tier 4-like approach to identify interventions, study their implementation, measure their effects, and modify them to fit our local context.