Josh Stewart

Josh Stewart, PhD., is a senior researcher at Mathematica with a focus on evaluation design and evidence-based practice implementation in the field of education. Recently, he supported Colorado partners in the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers (DLRT) Initiative, helping state and local education agency staff in Colorado develop an action plan to implement culturally responsive pedagogical practices in the classroom. This work also included creating a framework to aid districts and schools throughout Colorado to attract a more diverse and inclusive teacher workforce. Stewart also served as co-author on the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) funded tool, Guide to Conducting a Needs Assessment for American Indian Students. This tool prompts teachers and school administrators to assess the unique needs of their American Indian students, and address those needs through changes in climate, culture, instruction, and social-emotional supports at the classroom and school levels. Stewart also led the creation of the IES-funded Program Evaluation Toolkit, a self-paced online learning framework design to help education practitioners plan and carry out their own evaluations of locally implemented interventions. Serving as the lead researcher and author in 2019, Stewart led a study examining the associations between the qualifications of middle school Algebra I teachers and student math achievement for the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Central. Findings highlighted the connection between teacher qualifications and student success in Algebra I, emphasizing the significance of certification exam performance and years of experience teaching math, particularly benefiting underrepresented and disadvantaged student subgroups. Earlier in his career, Stewart significantly contributed to an experimental efficacy study on the "Every Day Counts Algebra Readiness" program, focusing on assessing the program's impact on the algebra readiness of 7th-grade students in rural Mississippi schools.