The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires that states develop and submit a State Plan to the U.S. Department of Education. To ensure a solid foundation for State Plan development and further stakeholder engagement, the Pennsylvania Department of Education asked AIR summarize ...
During a period of four years, Say Yes to Education developed data resources and tools reflecting a commitment, as part of a community-based reform initiative (Say Yes Syracuse), to identify needs, monitor implementation, certify results, provide transparency and engage stakeholders. This paper reviews the program and describes lessons learned. ...
Over the past decade, a number of reform efforts have aimed at reducing the size of the learning communities in the nation’s schools. This paper describes the framework underlying our evaluation design of a large-scale, multifaceted school reform initiative and identifies some of the methodological challenges inherent in work of ...
With Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcement of the Excellent Educators for All initiative earlier this month, putting excellent principals at the helm of high-need schools remains critical. To better prepare the new principals, Aaron Butler contends in this blog post, state- and district-level leaders should make leadership development and coaching ...
In this blog post, published as part of the work of the Midwest Comprehensive Center, Marguerite Huber discusses an effort to create a centerpiece of support for teachers and districts implementing Minnesota state standards.
In this blog post, published as part of the work of the Midwest Comprehensive Center, Chris Times and Fausto López describe how educators and students in Chicago are proving that diligence and data-informed decision making can lead to positive changes.
The initiatives to enhance adult learning program accountability and assessment systems of the following states are described in this paper: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, Washington, West Virginia.
Schools that show better academic performance than would be expected given characteristics of the school and student populations are often described as “beating the odds.” State and local education agencies often attempt to identify such schools as a means of identifying strategies or practices that might be contributing to the ...
Starting in January, the GED got a lot harder; while the overhaul makes sense, doing well now requires a new level of help that too few studying for it can get. In this blog post, Terry Salinger points to the need for adult charter schools and wraparound services to address ...
Magnet schools are best known for offering unique programs or curricula to attract students from outside a school’s neighborhood; many started off as neighborhood public schools but converted with the goals of increasing student diversity and achievement. A nine-year AIR study of 21 magnet schools found that while there was ...