Andrea Boyle

Senior Researcher

Andrea Boyle, a senior researcher at AIR, has over ten years of experience developing data collection instruments, conducting semi-structured interviews and focus groups, and analyzing qualitative data collected from a wide range of education stakeholders including state officials, district administrators, principals, and teachers. Her work at AIR has focused on studies examining state and local implementation of federal programs such as the Race to the Top and School Improvement Grant programs of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as Title I and Title III of Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Boyle has co-authored numerous publications (including briefs, technical reports, book chapters, and journal articles) on educational policies and practices in the areas of school turnaround, English language learners, state systems of support for low-performing schools, and teacher quality/effectiveness.

M.A., Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies, Stanford University Graduate School of Education; B.A., English and Film Studies, Cornell University

Contact Andrea Boyle

+1.650.376.6300

30 Nov 2018

ESSA includes a wide variety of ways for educators to support student success—including programs and funding streams that can be used to support arts education. In order to access the funding, education agencies must show evidence for how their proposed program can support or improve student outcomes. AIR examined hundreds ...

Review of Evidence: Arts Integration Research Through the Lens of the Every Student Succeeds Act

07 Nov 2017

Education scholars and researchers have argued that an arts integration approach—linking arts strategies and activities with curriculum and instruction in other subjects—can improve student learning in those subjects. This report examines the relevance of arts integration to the Every Student Succeeds Act. ...

Supporting English Learners and Students with Disabilities: Strategies from Turnaround Schools in Massachusetts

01 Sep 2017

Meeting the needs of English learners (ELs) and students with disabilities (SWDs) is a critical yet challenging responsibility for all schools. This brief highlights four key strategies that emerged from the exploration of practices and systems in place in Massachusetts turnaround schools that successfully provide appropriate interventions to all of ...

State Efforts to Promote Equitable Access to Effective Teachers

20 Jan 2017

This report provides a broad overview of state efforts, as of the 2011-12 school year, to monitor equitable access to qualified and effective teachers among schools; develop and adopt multiple measures of teacher performance to rate teachers among at least three performance levels; and implement targeted strategies for promoting equitable ...

School Improvement Grants: Implementation and Effectiveness

18 Jan 2017

The School Improvement Grant program awarded grants to states that agreed to implement one of four school intervention models—transformation, turnaround, restart, or closure—in their lowest-performing schools. This final report builds on the earlier briefs and report by including an additional year of data and by examining whether receipt of SIG ...

Race to the Top: Implementation and Relationship to Student Outcomes

26 Oct 2016

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 included $4.35 billion for Race to the Top (RTT), one of the Obama administration’s signature programs and one of the largest federal government investments in an education grant program. This final report examines how receipt of RTT grants was related to student ...

Five Ways States Can Support Dual Language Programs

26 May 2016

Unlike transitional bilingual programs that mainly seek to prepare English learners for general education classrooms, dual language programs aim to develop students’ literacy and content area knowledge in both English and a partner language, such as Spanish or Chinese. In this blog post, Andrea Boyle and Lisa Tabaku discuss their ...

Case Studies of Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants: Final Report

14 Apr 2016

With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program underwent three major shifts; by increasing the level of funding, better targeting these funds to the persistently lowest-achieving schools, and requiring that schools adopt specific intervention models, the revamped SIG program ...

Dual Language Education Programs: Current State Policies and Practices

06 Apr 2016

Recent research suggests that dual language education programs, a type of bilingual education program in which students are taught literacy and academic content in English and a partner language, provide more opportunities for English learners (ELs) to reach higher levels of academic achievement than other types of programs. Dual language ...

State Capacity to Support School Turnaround

05 May 2015

One objective of the U.S. Department of Education’s School Improvement Grants and Race to the Top program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the turnaround of low-performing schools. This brief documents states’ capacity to support school turnaround as of spring 2012 and spring 2013. It examines capacity ...

Building Teacher Capacity to Support English Language Learners in Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants

26 Nov 2014

Federal School Improvement Grants support turnaround efforts in the nation’s lowest-performing schools, including many that serve a large number of English Language Learner Students. This brief focuses on 11 of these schools with high proportions of ELLs, describing their efforts to improve teachers' capacity for serving ELLs through staffing strategies ...

A Focused Look at Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants That Have High Percentages of English Language Learner Students

17 Apr 2014

Federal School Improvement Grants (SIGs) support turnaround efforts in the nation’s lowest-performing schools, including many that serve a large number of English Language Learner Students (ELLs). This evaluation brief examines 11 high-ELL SIG schools’ capacity and efforts to address the unique needs of ELLs. ...

Persistently Improving Schools in Michigan: Moving Past a History of Low Performance

01 Oct 2013

Over the past decade, the Michigan Department of Education has sought to implement a support system to break the cycle of low performance in the state’s schools. This study documents the progress of six schools that made significant progress within five years. Three common themes emerged: a focus on school ...

Are Personalized Learning Environments the Next Wave of K-12 Education Reform?

20 Aug 2013

AIR examines 16 successful applications from the Race to the Top District awards. Four trends mark grantees' efforts to implement teaching and learning innovations, including blended learning environments, individualized career readiness plans, and empowering stakeholders.

State Support for School Improvement: School-level Perceptions of Quality

01 Nov 2009

Building on existing external school support literature, this brief offers a set of indicators for assessing the quality of support provided to low-performing schools, with respect to the No Child Left Behind Act.

Beyond Free Lunch—Alternative Poverty Measures in Educational Research and Program Evaluation

11 Apr 2005

Most education studies use a simple and convenient measure of poverty: the percentage of children eligible for free/reduced-price lunch. Although this measure provides the proportion of children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, it does not capture all dimensions of poverty, such as neighborhood effects. ...