Too many new principals say they are underprepared for critical leadership tasks which—combined with high job demands, poor support, and increased accountability—raises principal stress to a boiling point. In this blog post, Matthew Clifford describes 18 “high leverage” state-level policies that hold promise for increasing innovation and improving principal preparation. ...
Mounting evidence shows that social and emotional learning skills may be more predictive than test scores of student success in English language arts and math. In this blog post, Deborah Moroney and Michael McGarrah discuss how states and districts can build systems to support and properly assess these social and ...
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) puts each state in the driver’s seat for making its own K-12 policy. In this blog post, Peter Cookson discusses what this means for educational equity.
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.
A study released today by AIR and the Institute of Education Sciences shows that even small amounts of the right kind of feedback to teachers and principals can have an effect on student achievement in math. As Andrew Wayne explains in this blog post, the findings are important for states ...
In this blog post, Matthew Soldner argues that, as Congress works on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the need for far better research and access to federal student aid data should be high on its agenda.
It’s been 40 years since performance standards were substantially revised for Head Start. The newly Revised Head Start Rules were approved and released last September. They include four major changes: increased duration, expanded access, special supports for vulnerable populations, and improved supports for teachers. In this blog post, Eboni Howard ...
During the Bridges Toward Equity: Making Workforce Development Work for All roundtable event, a panel of AIR and community experts shared how stakeholders can work together to pursue an agenda to increase economic mobility and prosperity for the many Americans who are currently being left behind. Here are five of ...
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."
Evidence plays a critical role in designing and implementing approaches that accelerate learning and provide all students with equal access to a quality education. This blog post describes some of what AIR has learned about the approaches in the federal agenda.