While teacher effectiveness has been a particular focus of federal education policy, and districts allocate significant resources toward professional development for teachers, these efforts are guided by an unexplored assumption that classroom practice can be improved through intervention. This study examines the question of responsiveness by conducting a meta-analysis of ...
The Society of Professors of Education has given its 2014 book award Class Rules: Exposing Inequality in American High Schools to AIR's Dr. Peter Cookson for addressing the issues facing the discipline and vocation of education. Cookson compares the cultures and curricula of five high schools that have contrasting social ...
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.
First Lady Laura Bush in June joined Zambian first lady Maureen Mwanawasa for a visit to a school in Lusaka, Zambia that is supported by one of AIR’s major international efforts – the Community Health and Nutrition, Gender and Education Support – 2 (CHANGES2) program.
Over the past decade, a number of reform efforts have aimed at reducing the size of the learning communities in the nation’s schools. This paper describes the framework underlying our evaluation design of a large-scale, multifaceted school reform initiative and identifies some of the methodological challenges inherent in work of ...
AIR’s state and local evaluation projects marshal a broad range of expertise and resources to support state education agencies and district offices as they decide whether to retain, revise, or end a policy or program. The projects address challenges in district and school reform, educator quality, special education, school financing, ...
Recent media attention has raised significant concerns about our public school system’s capability to staff all classrooms; yet remarkably little research details the nature of teacher shortages. This brief provides a roadmap for policy leaders to hold better informed dialogues on the nature of teacher shortages, and target interventions to ...