Having a more effective teacher or principal can substantially improve students’ academic outcomes. This brief examines the effects of using research-based performance measures to evaluate educators and provide them with feedback, and of offering them bonuses based on their performance ratings.
Emerging research suggests some promising features of educator performance evaluation measures, such as additional observations of the same teacher and providing more frequent, specific feedback on classroom practice. This report, which discusses first year results of an evaluation of three performance measures for evaluating teachers and principals, found that the ...
AIR and MDRC, along with three small-business subcontractors, designed a randomized field trial to examine the impact of professional development (PD) on reading instruction and student achievement. The study combined scientific rigor with an understanding of how schools operate and what schools were doing in an attempt to improve reading ...
This report, based on a national evaluation of the Eisenhower program, provides information about how the program is operating and how it might be strengthened. A second objective of this report is to contribute to knowledge about teacher professional development. The Eisenhower program is a source of funding for professional ...
AIR developed a systematic, transparent, evidence-based protocol to review and translate the extant research about juvenile drug courts and related interventions into comprehensive, reasonable, actionable, understandable, and measurable guidelines.
Research suggests that effective teaching is the single most important school-based factor influencing student achievement and other student outcomes. And it may be particularly important to low-income and minority students. AIR and RAND are evaluating the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative, which aims to improve teaching effectiveness by changing ...
To improve services to students and families, we need information on what districts and charter management organizations are doing and plan to do to address COVID-19. From mid-May through July 2020, we are asking school district and charter management organization leaders to respond to a nationally representative survey of school ...
Evaluation systems appear to be one of the most rapidly changing policy issues affecting teachers in recent years. This paper provides a brief synopsis of the process of dissecting the evaluation system.
Jizhi Zhang is an educational psychologist, and a principal research scientist at AIR. Dr. Zhang is currently working on a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) research study on achievement gaps and previously she led a content research study to compare the 2011 Grade 8 NAEP and the Trends in ...
The closure of school buildings and the sudden shift to virtual learning last spring due to the coronavirus pandemic created many challenges for school districts in how they serve all students, including those with disabilities and those who are English learners. New results from an AIR survey examine how school ...