Jason LaTurner

Jason LaTurner is a Project Director with SEDL's Education Systems Support (ESS) program. Dr. LaTurner’s work focuses on evaluation capacity building for state education agencies. Through SEDL’s Southeast Comprehensive Center and Texas Comprehensive Center, he consults with state education department staff on developing evaluation plans and employing appropriate quantitative and qualitative research methods to study the effectiveness of a range of district and school improvement programs.This work includes using state and national longitudinal data systems and assisting staff in creating data collection tools, analyzing evaluation results, and developing presentations and workshops for state and district audiences. Other work includes providing training for school districts and others in the use of SEDL’s Concerns-Based Adoption Model, focusing specifically on developing Innovation Configurations and helping systems use the Stages of Concern Questionnaire to guide decisions about implementation of new initiatives.

Dr. LaTurner’s expertise as an evaluation researcher and project manager includes more than 10 years of experience in scoping, assessing, and managing programs in educational and nonprofit settings. This experience ranges from preK to post-baccalaureate levels and includes designing and implementing both large- and small-scale evaluation studies. He has in-depth training and experience in quantitative and qualitative methodologies with considerable experience evaluating STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs and teacher training and certification programs.

Prior to joining SEDL in November 2011, Dr. LaTurner was a research scientist in the Austin, Texas, office of the University of Texas at Dallas–Education Research Center (ERC), where he conducted research on statewide educational initiatives. In this role, he utilized the longitudinal Texas accountability data housed at the ERC to examine a variety of research questions. Previously, he worked for Austin Independent School District designing and executing process and outcome tracking systems for grant-funded programs, including initiatives funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) and the Austin Community Collaboration to Enhance Student Success (ACCESS). Dr. LaTurner also spent several years as a researcher in the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin directing multi-method evaluations of the UTeach math and science teacher preparation program.

Dr. LaTurner holds a BA in sociology from Purdue University, an MA in higher education and student affairs from Bowling Green State, and a PhD in sociology with a focus on education and statistics from the University of Texas at Austin.