Cheryl Graczewski

Cheryl Graczewski is a senior researcher at AIR. She is currently the project director for the Office of Elementary and Secondary EIR Mid-Phase Grant of MyTeaching Partner-Secondary, a three-cohort randomized controlled trial (RCT) focused on refining, scaling, and testing a video-based coaching program for teachers shown to improve teacher practice, student engagement, and student achievement. Graczewski oversees the budget, staffing, implementation, data collection, analysis and dissemination. Graczewski is also the implementation evaluation lead for the Professional Learning with Impact (PLI) grant, another RCT study in five districts. She manages a team of researchers to design and use data collection and analysis protocols for reporting on implementation fidelity, as well as providing actionable, data-based feedback to implementation partners in frequent cycles of collaborative improvement.

Previously, Graczewski served as the project director for the I3 scale-up study of the Building Assets Reducing Risks (BARR) model, a five-year RCT study involving 66 schools across the country. This mixed-methods evaluation required the coordination of large-scale data collection across multiple years in schools with diverse populations. Graczewski also served as the project director for AIR’s work on the national Impact Evaluation for Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants where her responsibilities included the development of state and district interview protocols, internal leadership for state and district recruitment and data collection, and participation in the analysis and writing of several briefs and reports. She also served as project director for AIR’s work on the CalWORKs SB 1041 Evaluation, a four-year evaluation of reforms to the California welfare to work program in partnership with RAND Corporation, funded by the California Department of Social Services. Her technical experience includes project management, developing interview protocols, conducting interviews, site visits, and classroom observations, data analysis, and writing reports.

Graczewski has experience in policy analysis and worked for three years at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the international affairs division before coming to AIR.