Susan Muenchow and Christopher Ruhm discuss how a paid parental leave policy could promote a more stable foundation for children and families in the U.S.—without breaking the bank. Longer leave gives mothers more time to heal physically, encourages breastfeeding, and promotes parent-baby attachment. ...
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 ...
Systemic challenges in the educator workforce require thoughtful and bold actions, and ESSA presents a unique opportunity for states to reaffirm, modify, or improve their vision of educator effectiveness. This discussion guide focuses on one challenge that states face as part of this work: defining ineffective teacher in the absence ...
More than 45 million Americans live in rural areas. Rural residents often encounter barriers to healthcare, including provider shortages or traveling long distances. AIR leverages expertise in data analysis, technical assistance, human-centered design and stakeholder engagement to understand and help solve the healthcare challenges facing rural communities. ...
This spotlight takes a look at the history of Title I, how the program has changed over time, and how it affects children, schools, families and education policy. Experts weigh in on the program's past and future in interviews, briefs, and blogs.
Every year, City Year recruits a diverse group of Student Success Coaches, ages 18-25, to deliver its holistic Whole School Whole Child (WSWC) model. Juliette Berg and David Osher discuss AIR's five-year evaluation of the model's challenges and opportunities.
In 2005 AIR partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to identify the core indicators that schools must actively manage to support student success, and develop an instrument to assess these indicators. Based on consensus from a meeting of national experts and district staff, and refined through a series of 22 ...
During the past 20 years, the afterschool field has been held accountable in varying ways—first, on the ability to provide safe places for young people to spend time while their parents work; then, on success in helping to improve participants’ academic achievement as a supplement to the school day. This ...
States and school districts have made significant investments in systems to measure teacher performance, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. In this report, AIR experts share their findings from the two-year Beyond Accountability project, in which four school districts identified a specific problem of practice and used plan-do-study-act ...
The latest Surgeon General’s Report, “The Health Consequences of Smoking – 50 Years of Progress,” marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark reports warning about the health hazards of smoking. Fifty years, 20 million American deaths, and 32 Surgeon General Reports later, smoking has retained its decades-old spot as the ...