Hella Bel Hadj Amor

Dr. Hella Bel Hadj Amor spearheads a research and technical assistance agenda around educator effectiveness at Education Northwest that includes providing technical assistance to Alaska and Oregon stakeholders. She brings years of experience as a technical assistance provider, practitioner and researcher.

Hella previously directed the American Institutes for Research (AIR) New York State Growth and Value-Added Program and the student-learning based component of the Massachusetts educator evaluations. She is the former director of Teacher Effectiveness Research and Evaluation at District of Columbia Public Schools, where she designed and implemented the student learning component of the DC IMPACT system. Prior to her work in the district, she was a research scientist at the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York University (NYU) where she led qualitative and quantitative research projects in collaboration with education systems.

Hella leads the educator effectiveness working group of REL Northwest as well as the management of research-practice partnerships. She earned her master’s in economics and her Ph.D. in public administration from NYU.

We do not have to choose between students and teachers when we make education policy decisions. The right policies and programs promote success and well-being for both groups. Education Northwest provides me with an exciting opportunity to help make that happen in districts and states every day.

Applied Research and Technical Support
503.275.9587
Email Hella Bel Hadj Amor

Areas of Work: 

Blog Posts

So You Think You Want to Conduct Research in a School District? Part 2

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November 5th, 2014
When you approach a district with a request to conduct research or receive data, you probably won’t be the first. Districts are likely to have a process for managing requests, especially districts like DC Public Schools where I used to manage this process and everyone wants to do research. The...

So You Think You Want to Conduct Research in a School District? Part 1

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November 4th, 2014
When I led the data and research request process at DC Public Schools, I heard a range of arguments from researchers who wanted to conduct research or receive data. Some were funny, others outrageous. That’s why I am writing an introduction on how to do this right. Believe it or not, doing research...

Talking to Teachers About Value-Added Measures

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July 29th, 2014
It’s easy to understand why teachers are not always thrilled when they learn their district is considering using value-added models to help evaluate their effectiveness. One concern teachers may have about any system that rates them based on their students’ performance is, What if, by design or...