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Kirk Vandersall is Managing Director of Arroyo Research Services. Vandersall leads the Arroyo Research Services strategic partnership with TrueNorthLogic, providing assessment development, evaluation and research advisory services. He directs evaluations that include The Electronic Portfolio Connection at five universities in Vermont, the simSchool online teacher training simulation, ETIPS Educational Leadership Cases at the University of Virginia, an Enhancing Education Through Technology project in Dayton, Ohio, and an innovative, technology-based early childhood educator professional development program under development by the Arizona School Services through Education Technology (ASSET) program. Additionally, Vandersall leads Arroyo Research Services' NCLB evaluation technical assistance efforts for members of Florida's East Coast Technical Assistance Center (ECTAC), is the facilitator of the Florida Evaluation Working Group, and recently designed and delivered evaluation services for the NCLB Regional Technical Assistance Centers for Regions III and IV in Florida. Additional client work includes student and teacher data analysis for SchoolNet, Inc., review of English Language Development programs for a large southern California school district, and research design services for the Gallup Education Division. He recently served as Special Advisor to the APQC K-12 Professional Development Benchmarking Study.
Vandersall has over 15 years of experience in leading and writing evaluations and policy studies at the federal, state and local levels, and providing a broad range of professional services for education organizations. He is a contributing author on state education policy in Strategies for Equity: Creating Productive Schools in a Just Society, edited by Marilyn Gittell, and has published and presented at national conferences and seminars on educational measurement and evaluation, education technology, state education policy-making, state school finance, and educational equity. He specialized in state and local policy studies at the Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center in New York City, where he led education policy studies throughout the country. Prior to forming Arroyo Research Services, Vandersall was a founding partner of Metiri Group, a national education technology consulting firm, where he was also Practice Leader for Metiri Group Research and Evaluation. In that capacity, he managed a three-year evaluation of the Ohio SchoolNet Telecommunity, was engagement manager for university and foundation initiatives in Vermont, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia and Iowa, advised the U.S. Department of Education and State Education Technology Directors Association, and provided research and evaluation services for state and national clients. Vandersall was a key contributor to the enGauge assessments developed by Metiri Group for the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, which included ISTE NETS-T aligned assessments of educator proficiency. He also performed the technical validation studies for the SETDA-Profile of Education Technology Integration surveys for teachers, principals and district administrators, and managed the technical development of Metiri Group's online assessment products, including it's version of the SETDA-PETI products as well as survey administration tools for students and teachers. For Ohio SchoolNet, he designed a project portfolio system that was the main component of the summative evaluation for the Interactive Video Distance Learning program. For the Milken Family Foundation, Vandersall was research manager for studies of the Miami Dade County Public School System's Instructional Technology Program, the development of an on-line assessment toolset for school technology programs for the Florida Education Technology Corporation, and the development of the instrumentation behind the on-line Professional Competency Assessment, an ISTE NETS-T aligned assessment of educator technology proficiency.
Vandersall established an office of Assessment and Evaluation for a large urban school district in Los Angeles County, evaluated a major K-12 math and science initiative funded by the National Science Foundation, taught graduate-level policy analysis and evaluation, and has been a research and evaluation consultant for foundation, nonprofit and corporate projects in education, healthcare and urban policy.
Pamela Ellis is a Senior Associate for Arroyo Research Services. Ellis has demonstrated excellence as a researcher, writer and leader in education and business. Her recent work includes evaluation of an administrator preparation program at the University of Virginia, consulting and research for Baltimore County Public Schools, major responsibility for the ARS evaluation of the Columbus Public Schools LACES Reading Program, and research design and consulting services for the Ohio Department of Education. Her research projects address teacher retention, teacher quality, and K-12 STEM initiatives. Prior to joining Arroyo Research Services, Ellis worked with Education Development Center, Ohio’s Teacher Quality Partnership, Stanford University, and in a broad range of research and management positions in the private sector. Ellis holds a B.A. in Linguistics and a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, and an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Cotter Donnell is an Arroyo Research Services Project Manager. In this capacity, Donnell provides direct support and coordination of ARS resources for client engagements. His recent work includes project support for ARS engagements with Northeastern University, the University of Virginia, and Osceola County Public Schools. Prior to joining Arroyo Research Services, Donnell taught high school and middle school English in Seattle, Switzerland and Los Angeles, where he also participated in curriculum planning and development. Donnell holds a B.A. in English and History from Boston College and is a M.A. Candidate at the Middlebury College Bread Loaf School of English. Michelle Vruwink is Director of Arroyo Research Services. Vruwink has extensive experience in public sector health policy leadership, private sector health policy consulting, and community based health and social services. Her experience includes program evaluation and work on school health policy and education funding with clients including universities, school districts, and state education agencies. Prior to joining Arroyo Research Services, she was Senior Consultant for Pacific Health Policy Group, where her clients included Wellpoint Health Networks, California Health Care Foundation, Sierra Health Services, and the states of Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia and Oklahoma. Vruwink was Acting Director of the Mayor's Office of Medicaid Managed Care for the City of New York, where she managed a staff of 15 directing the largest program of its kind in the country. As a senior member of the Mayor's Office of Health Policy, she directed the city's Domestic Violence Prevention campaign. Before joining the Mayor's staff, Vruwink was Program Coordinator for HIV CARE Services for the Medical and Health Research Association of New York City, working with more than 30 community based organizations that administered programs funded through the Ryan White Comprehensive Aids Resources Emergency Act. As Director, Resource Development for Project Hospitality in New York City, a nonprofit multi-service center providing housing, health, nutrition, education and job training services, Vruwink was responsible for procuring millions of dollars in federal and state funds for model programs. Vruwink received a Masters in Public Policy from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
Consultants Arroyo Research Services also provides services through consultants with broad experience in state departments of education, major school districts and education research and consulting. |
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