At 21, many foster youth “age out” of financial benefits and supports from the child welfare system—before they even finish college. Given the challenges they face, it’s not surprising that only 3 to 10 percent of them earn undergraduate degrees compared with 34 percent of young adults who weren’t in ...
As public debate over the use of Common Core standards in U.S. schools gathers steam, parents and policymakers need to know more about current proficiency standards and, as Gary Phillips says in this blog post, be prepared for some surprises. With each state defining "proficiency" differently, it is difficult to ...
First-generation immigrants perform better in reading and math tests than their second-generation peers, who in turn outperform their third-generation classmates, according to a new study by Umut Özek and Northwestern University’s David Figlio. The pair followed the performance of Asian and Hispanic students in Florida, a population that mirrors national ...
How do good teachers transform into great ones? This blog post refers to a study from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, which surveyed more than 300 top teachers, to advise state education agencies about how to enhance teacher development.
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
In this blog post, Mark Schneider discusses the disconnect between what students and faculty expect from a college education, and how to reconcile those differences.
New U.S. Department of Education draft rules aim to hold teacher-training programs accountable for the quality of their graduates. In this blog post, Marianne Lemke discusses what's at stake.
New figures released today show that overall reported crimes on college campuses decreased by 34 percent between 2001 and 2013. However, reports of forcible sex crimes on college campuses increased by 126 percent over this same period. Between 2012 and 2013 alone, the reported number of forcible sex crimes rose ...
Head Start, a leader for 50 years in preparing children from low income families for kindergarten and beyond, is about to undergo its first comprehensive overhaul since 1975. In this blog post, AIR's Yoni Farber talks about the importance of the change from intermittent workshops to intensive professional development for ...
The 2008-09 recession struck hard at college and university finances. In this blog post, AIR's Steven Hurlburt explains that, while colleges and universities continue to show signs of fiscal recovery in 2013, some worrying shifts remain, particularly for public higher education.