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.
School principals are second only to classroom teachers as the most influential school factor in student achievement. For the lowest-performing schools, strong leadership—including setting and maintaining direction—plays a key role in turning around schools' performance and improving student outcomes. Assessing the performance of principals is essential given the position's critical ...
Using administrative longitudinal data from five states, this report looks at how value-added measures of teacher performance are affected by changes in state standards and assessments. In most cases, the researchers found that measures of teacher value added are similarly stable in transition years and nontransition years. ...
State implementation of new standards (revising, adapting, and adopting new standards) is a significant undertaking. Many states are just beginning to consider whether to modify existing science standards, adapt standards being used in other states, or develop new ones. This document is intended to guide state boards of education through ...
Gretchen Weber is still a teacher at heart. A National Board Certified Teacher, she thinks of herself as a voice for teachers—someone who has walked in their shoes and now hammers on the issues teachers face every day. In our latest Q&A, she explains how we can recognize teachers not ...
The final report of a study of teacher preparation in early reading instruction describes pre-service teachers' perceptions about the content of their training programs and summarizes their scores on an assessment of their knowledge of the essential components of reading instruction, as defined in the Reading First legislation. ...
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 ...
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.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction contracted with AIR to provide a comprehensive evaluation of its Culturally Responsive Education for All: Training and Enhancement (CREATE) initiative during its first three years of implementation. AIR employed a qualitative case study design to assess program implementation and to determine the effect participation in ...
To support the student learning objective (SLO) implementation and sustainability process, states and districts can provide resources for teachers, evaluators, and SLO leaders that improve the quality of SLOs, rigor of assessments, and consistency of scoring. This report outlines the importance of these resources while considering the variety of implementation ...