The primary purpose of California's Birth Through 3 Program is to increase the number of the most vulnerable children receiving high quality comprehensive services that meet their needs for early learning, health and family support. This paper details the program's purpose and design, and concludes that the proposed enactment of ...
This report delivers an overview of the site visit component of the TTT evaluation. Specifically, it describes the process that was used to select the eight sites and provides a snapshot of each; discusses major themes that emerged from the data and relates them to the literature on alternative certification ...
Not all student growth measures are alike, nor are they designed to be. But when student growth measures are used for educator evaluation, fairness and comparability become critical. This paper focuses on the benefits and challenges of student learning objectives (SLOs) and their use in educator effectiveness systems. To support ...
The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt “value-added” models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. This study examines how teacher evaluations are affected by incorrectly attributing changes in student's test scores to the value-added of teachers in spring classrooms, and explores ...
To assess teacher effectiveness in accordance with state and federal policies—such as the Race to the Top program—many states and districts are using growth and value-added models as one component of a comprehensive teacher evaluation system.
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.
Recognizing that human capital is the most important asset to teaching and learning, states and districts are rethinking their approaches to evaluating teachers’ performance. This white paper is intended to assist states and districts in strategically combining measures into a summative score in a way that reflects their goals and ...
The Office of Head Start developed the Early Learning Mentor Coach initiative to improve practices in Head Start programs. AIR conducted a study to describe the objectives, activities, approaches, strategies and other aspects of the initiative.
Grantees hired coaches who provided on-the-job guidance, training and technical assistance to Head Start staff. ...
A significant number of educator compensation reform efforts are underway throughout the country. The purpose of this report is to assist the stakeholders in alternative compensation initiatives to better understand the ways in which they can structure performance incentives in the context of their intended outcomes, local culture, and available ...
The annual Condition of Education 2018 provides new insight into the costs and availability of child care options. Spotlight author Jijun Zhang, AIR senior psychometrician and statistician, recently discussed the findings with Susan Muenchow, AIR principal researcher in early learning and care.