In an era of increasingly rigorous state standards, teachers at all grade levels face heightened expectations to deepen their students’ understanding of mathematical concepts. This report examines the impact of content-intensive professional development on teachers’ math content knowledge, their instructional practice, and their students’ achievement. ...
The 2020‒21 school year has begun like no other in the recent history as millions of students are learning online and the services and supports that schools can offer are limited due to concerns about COVID-19. Educators, practitioners and policymakers are invited to join AIR and colleagues from across the ...
Federal and local governments continue to invest billions of dollars each year in professional development for teachers. Until recently, there has been little rigorous evidence to inform the design and delivery of these programs. This brief outlines the key findings from three random assignment PD evaluation studies and proposes areas ...
Educator performance evaluation systems are a potential tool for improving student achievement by increasing the effectiveness of the educator workforce. This report is based on a study on the implementation of teacher and principal performance measures highlighted by recent research, as well as the impact of providing feedback based on ...
Over the last decade, educators have become increasingly interested in continuous improvement (CI) as a strategy for reform. For this literature review, AIR set out to locate empirical studies that described the process of implementing CI, as well as studies that analyzed the conditions that foster or limit its use. ...
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 ...
Getting a job is about more than academic performance. In this blog post, Kimberly Kendziora discusses the growing body of research on the importance of social and emotional skills, such as self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills.
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 ...