Teacher and principal evaluation systems now emerging in response to federal, state, and/or local policy initiatives typically require that a component of teacher evaluation be based on multiple performance metrics, which must be combined to produce summative ratings of teacher effectiveness. This paper investigates whether the bias and error introduced ...
The science of learning and development (SoLD) is a cross-disciplinary body of knowledge that describes how people learn and develop. AIR is part of the SoLD Alliance, which serves as a resource to connect and support leaders in research, practice, and policy to transform America’s education systems and achieve equity ...
Teach For America (TFA), the alternative certification program that places intensively selected recent college graduates and midcareer professionals into classrooms serving high-need students, requires a two-year commitment from the corps members it places in regions across the country. This report examines low retention, a major point of criticism directed at ...
U.S. businesses are facing challenges filling so-called “middle-skills” jobs in trades, telecommunications, health care, IT, and similar professions. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is an existing and promising pathway that can address this gap.
Competency-based education makes student mastery of learning goals—rather than seat time—the metric to determine student credit and progression. Take a closer look at how schools implement competency-based education, and how it is related to what students need to learn effectively.
Teachers are the number-one factor in student learning, so preparing and supporting high-quality teachers of computer science is critical. AIR is working with states, districts, and teachers to implement and test three promising strategies to strengthen teacher preparation and development:
In a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that spanned more than a decade, AIR found that attending a high school with an explicit focus on deeper learning resulted in positive short-term outcomes, but few longer-term outcomes. In this Q&A, AIR Principal Researcher Kristina Zeiser and Senior Researcher Catherine Bitter share insights about ...
This CALDER Center paper examines the value of strategically assigning disproportionately larger classes to the strongest teachers in order to optimize student learning in the face of differential teacher effectiveness. The rationale is straightforward: Larger classes for the best teachers benefit the pupils who are reassigned to them; they also ...
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, teachers, principals, and students have had to quickly adjust to distance learning or e-learning. Although data were gathered before the pandemic, the results of the spring 2020 release of Volume 2 of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) offer insights about teachers and principals ...