As the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged teachers to shift instruction to distance learning platforms, it also has exposed the need for professional learning opportunities to help teachers adapt to this “new normal.” Lynn Holdheide answered a few questions about how districts and schools can turn this crisis into an opportunity ...
This Statistics in Brief analyzes student's participation in summer activities compared by two socioeconomic characteristics - household poverty status and parents' highest level of education. Data for socioeconomic characteristics was gathered from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 while data related to summer activity participation was collected ...
Many states are attempting to identify schools that perform better than schools with similar populations. Such “beating-the-odds” schools offer opportunities to identify promising practices that can be implemented by other ...
In this commentary published in the Hill, Dan Goldhaber, AIR vice president and director of CALDER, and John C. White, Louisiana state superintendent of education, discuss the importance of formal mentoring for teachers during their career training.
The Iowa Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) system was designed to provide career pathways and compensation structures to attract, retain and reward effective teachers; to promote continuous improvement in Iowa’s teaching workforce; and to increase student academic achievement. This report updates the Year 1 implementation and outcome findings based on ...
Two efforts that have impacted teachers across the country in recent years are state-mandated teacher evaluation and support systems and statewide adoption of new, more rigorous and focused student learning standards based on the Common Core State Standards. In this brief, AIR explores the level of alignment that exists between ...
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 ...
Apprentice retention is a dynamic process that is affected by multiple factors that change over time. This brief, Improving Apprenticeship Completion Rates, summarizes the findings of our review of studies on apprentice retention and provides recommended strategies to mitigate factors negatively affecting attrition. ...
The Iowa Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) system was designed to provide career pathways and compensation structures to attract, retain, and reward effective teachers; to promote continuous improvement in Iowa’s teaching workforce; and to increase student academic achievement. As part of an independent evaluation, AIR conducted these case studies of ...
School improvement policy for the past few decades has been characterized by mandated lists of activities designed to stimulate a dramatic turnaround in student achievement. In the long run, this policy approach did not engender the necessary school-level changes. This brief demonstrates why new policies must aim to get the ...