Marlene Darwin is a senior researcher who has been with AIR since 2003. Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Darwin spent 15 years as a reading specialist in middle and high schools in Virginia and Georgia. She spent seven years on the management team for the Reading First Monitoring Project, where ...
Social and emotional skills undergird student success—and mold better citizens. Results from the Collaborating Districts Initiative suggest that even modest investments can pay off for individuals, schools, and society. In this policy brief, Kimberly Kendziora and Nick Yoder share the results of the evaluation and offer policy six recommendations for ...
One objective of the U.S. Department of Education’s School Improvement Grants and Race to the Top program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the turnaround of low-performing schools. This brief documents states’ capacity to support school turnaround as of spring 2012 and spring 2013. It examines capacity ...
Tia Clinton is an education researcher who’s work spans equity, K-12 school and program improvement, student belonging, and evaluation. Dr. Clinton has extensive experience in school level and nonprofit level interventions to increase achievement outcomes for students of color both on the K-12 and higher education levels. Her professional career ...
Julie Reed Kochanek is senior vice president of human services at AIR, director of the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest, and leads AIR’s Education Systems and Policy program area. Dr. Kochanek has more than 15 years of experience in research and evaluation of school reform efforts, with a special focus ...
Ten of 18 school improvement models, used in thousands of middle and high schools, demonstrate promising evidence of raising student achievement, according to a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of research on the models conducted by AIR.
The instructional modality of schools (in-person, hybrid, or remote instruction) has implications not only for the health and safety of students and staff, but also student learning and the degree to which parents can engage in job activities. In this working paper, we consider the role of instructional modality in ...
A networked improvement community (NIC) is a group of individuals or organizations that uses principles of improvement science to learn about how different interventions work in varying contexts. REL Midwest and a group of practitioners convened a NIC to work on narrowing inequality in schools in Michigan with the largest ...
Researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and funders are increasingly aware of the powerful potential for summertime experiences and the need to design, implement, and continuously improve summertime experiences for all.
At this event, AIR research experts and superintendents discussed findings from AIR's research briefs and the implications for practice and policy in a post-COVID era.