Melissa Eiler White

Overview

Melissa Eiler White guides research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects focused on strengthening teacher workforce systems. She has designed and led formative evaluation and continuous improvement projects in the context of large-scale change efforts focused on improving the preparation of teachers and addressing the equitable distribution of teachers.

White’s expertise in teacher workforce issues, formative evaluation, and continuous improvement supports clients to leverage data in making strategic and data-informed decisions about teacher workforce policy and practice, as well as system changes structures, to support lasting changes. She co-leads a state agency collaborative in California that has resulted in timely and coordinated action across 12 state institutions that have purview over the teacher workforce to address root causes of inaccessibility to high-quality clinically oriented teacher preparation programs and teacher shortages in the state. She advises on multiple evaluation and continuous improvement projects, supporting teams to design and deliver high-quality and impactful projects.

White has been the principal investigator for long-term, large-scale projects such as the evaluation of the California Teacher Residency Grant Program, which resulted in changes to better support the affordability and sustainability of the state’s residency programs. Her team’s work with Preparing a New Generation of Educators for California  at the California State University, one of the largest teacher preparation programs in the country, resulted in a first-ever set of dashboards now used by all 23 teacher preparation programs to understand their teacher pipeline data and allow easy disaggregation to attend to critical equity issues. She has led research on California’s teacher and principal labor market for the Regional Educational Laboratory West (REL West), teacher preparation research and evaluation projects at Stanford, and research on teacher learning and leadership at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

Education

• PhD, administration and policy analysis, Stanford University
• MA, policy analysis and evaluation, Stanford University
• BA, political science, University of California at Berkeley

Select Publications

White, M. E., Takahashi, S., Hirschboeck, K., Honigsberg, L., Perry, R., Reade, F., & Ambroso, E. (2020). Early learning from formative evaluation of California’s Teacher Residency Grant Program. WestEd.

Dolle, J., White, M., Takahashi, S., & Donahue, C. (2020). Improving teacher preparation: An organizational learning approach. Journal for Quality Perspectives in Knowledge, 10(1)

White, M. E., Hirschboeck, K., Donahue, C., & Torre Gibney, D. (2020). Strengthening the data use and continuous improvement capacity of teacher preparation programs. WestEd.

Torre Gibney, D., Rutherford-Quach, S., Hirschboeck, K., & White, M. E. (2020). Strengthening the clinical orientation of teacher preparation programs. WestEd.

White, M. E., Milby, A., Tejwani, J., Hirschboeck, K., & Torre Gibney, D. (2020). The NGEI approach to improving teacher preparation in the CSU through a system of supports. WestEd.

White, M. E., Torre Gibney, D., & Milby, A. (2019). Developing systems for high-quality feedback to teacher candidates: Lessons learned from 11 California State University teacher preparation programs. WestEd.

White, M. E., & Fong, A. B. (2008). Trends in California teacher demand: A county and regional perspective (Issues & Answers Report, REL 2008–No. 057). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory West. Hatch, T., White, M. E., & Faigenbaum, D. (2005). Expertise, credibility, and influence: How teachers can influence policy, advance research and improve performance. Teachers College Record, 107(5), 1004–1035.