This brief discusses scientifically based reading instruction in relation to federal policy mandates and focuses on strategies and standards for ensuring that teachers are qualified to teach reading.
Experts from AIR will be sharing evidence and insights from their work at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. The in-person meeting is April 13-16 in Chicago and the virtual conference is on May 4 and 5.
Knowing that the current context is dramatically different than previous school years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that students’ access to learning from home varies, how should schools grade student performance? This brief from the California Collaborative on District Reform explores some of the policy options California districts and ...
The National Center for Education Statistics this week released the annual Condition of Education report, a congressionally mandated compendium of multiple data points about all levels of education. AIR provided technical and editorial support for the report, including improvements that make the data more accessible and easier for policymakers, researchers, ...
In 2014, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) moved away from a state-supported policy that placed all Grade 8 students in Algebra I due concerns about poor student outcomes and growing achievement gaps. A new policy and practice brief from the California Collaborative on District Reform, an initiative of ...
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. ...
The purpose of the five-year Preschool Research and Technical Assistance Project for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has been to offer research-based technical assistance to state and local entities on how to phase in access to high-quality preschool to all children in California, beginning in the neighborhoods with the ...
This study examines how general coping strategies mediate the relationship between perceived racial discrimination and depression. Results suggest that the use of “avoidant coping strategies” may mediate or help to explain why perceptions of racial discrimination are associated with increased depression among African American youth. ...
The recent release of the 2015 NAEP results by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics have been labeled “historic” by some because math scores at both Grades 4 and 8 and reading at Grade 8 have all declined, the first decline since NAEP's framework was put ...
When teachers learn, students learn. For decades, AIR has conducted studies of teacher professional learning and helped practitioners use evidence to develop, implement, test, and scale professional learning programs.