States have prioritized documenting and improving the quality of early childhood education programs by developing quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs). This report describes the quality improvement efforts of early childhood education programs participating in Iowa’s voluntary quality rating and improvement system, the Iowa Quality Rating System (QRS). The findings ...
The foster care system was already overburdened before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now, it faces even more challenges. AIR early childhood expert and licensed foster mom Ann-Marie Faria discusses these challenges and potential ways to address them in the latest podcast episode.
This spotlight takes a look at the history of Title I, how the program has changed over time, and how it affects children, schools, families and education policy. Experts weigh in on the program's past and future in interviews, briefs, and blogs.
The latest Surgeon General’s Report, “The Health Consequences of Smoking – 50 Years of Progress,” marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark reports warning about the health hazards of smoking. Fifty years, 20 million American deaths, and 32 Surgeon General Reports later, smoking has retained its decades-old spot as the ...
Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, a practicing physician, researcher, and director of the AIR Center for Addiction Research and Effective Solutions (AIR CARES), provides some advice for finding reliable sources of information, rooted in science and evidence, while avoiding a sense of panic.
In this report, we communicate the state of K-12 social studies education by examining the following topics: trends in the development and content of state social studies standards; the landscape of curriculum materials and state and district efforts in evaluating these materials; and gaps in the field for further investigation. ...
Listen to the first season of LAC Reads Out Loud, a podcast, created by the LAC Reads Capacity Program, focused on raising awareness among different key audiences about the importance of foundational literacy for children in Central America and the Caribbean.
Using the Internet is the norm for today’s youth. AIR was commissioned by the Pew Internet & American Life Project to conduct a qualitative study of the attitudes and behaviors of Internet-using public middle and high school students drawn from across the country.
AIR has built a strong portfolio of computer science (CS) projects through our CS@AIR initiative. We support more than a dozen projects—all with a focus on ensuring that every student gets access to a high-quality computer science education.
Quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) constitute an ambitious policy approach to improving early care and education practices and child outcomes. A QRIS is a uniform set of ratings, graduated by level of quality, used to assess and improve early learning and care programs. The purpose of this study, conducted ...