Deborah Holtzman

Deborah Holtzman has more than 25 years of experience conducting educational research and evaluation, specializing in analysis of quantitative data and survey methodology, often in relation to mathematics and science education, educator effectiveness, or early childhood education. Dr. Holtzman currently serves as principal investigator and project director of the evaluation of an EIR-funded grant to improve student access to and achievement in the Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course. Recently, she analyzed the impact and implementation of several interventions funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Balance the Equation Grand Challenge” to make Algebra 1 more accessible, relevant, and collaborative for traditionally underrepresented students. Another recent project was an analysis of the effects of remote learning during the 2020–21 school year in California schools on subsequent student achievement, using data housed in the AIR-hosted COVID-19 and Equity in Education longitudinal database.

From 2019 through 2022, Dr. Holtzman served as the analysis co-lead for a study of dual language learners in California early learning and care programs and, from 2017 through 2020, as the analysis lead for a randomized controlled study of an intervention designed to help low-income parents in the San Francisco Bay Area promote mathematics learning with their 2- and 3-year-old children. From 2010 through 2019, Dr. Holtzman was one of the lead researchers in a major study of the Gates Foundation’s Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching, conducting several large-scale surveys of teachers and school leaders.

Other projects Dr. Holtzman has worked on since joining AIR in 2004 include an IES-funded randomized controlled study of Check & Connect, a dropout prevention program; an evaluation of AP Insight, a College Board program providing online instructional resources; a study of the sensitivity of NAEP to reform-oriented mathematics teaching; and a study of the effects of San Diego’s instructional reform in the early 2000s.

Dr. Holtzman’s doctoral dissertation, completed in 2009, used hierarchical linear modeling to examine relationships among content standards, instruction, and student achievement in California. Prior to joining AIR and pursuing her doctoral degree, she was a research associate in the Mathematics and Science Program at WestEd, a project coordinator at the Charles A. Dana Center, and a social studies textbook editor for Holt, Rinehart and Winston.