An intensive content-focused professional development program improved fourth-grade teachers’ knowledge and some aspects of their instruction, but not their students’ achievement, according to a new study by AIR.
AIR is conducting a five-year, $16 million Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems (TLES) study, which will provide rigorous evidence on whether teacher and leader evaluation systems in selected school districts have their intended impacts on student achievement.
The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt “value-added” models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. This study examines how teacher evaluations are affected by incorrectly attributing changes in student's test scores to the value-added of teachers in spring classrooms, and explores ...
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 ...
Educator performance evaluation systems are a potential tool for improving student achievement by increasing the effectiveness of the educator workforce. This study from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences was conducted by an AIR research team that examined the implementation of teacher and principal performance measures ...
In 2012–13, Newark Public Schools ratified a new teacher contract, the main goal of which is to implement a high-quality measure of teaching effectiveness and use it to support and manage teachers in ways that improve student outcomes. An evaluation of the contract and associated initiatives found that teachers and ...
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality has compiled information about the availability, recruitment, and retention of teachers for at-risk schools and students in this inaugural biennial report.
Despite the important role that adult education can play in students’ lives, research on teachers of adult education is limited. AIR produced four research briefs to provide descriptive information about the characteristics of teachers in adult education and to explore whether teacher characteristics are associated with student achievement in adult ...
When teachers learn, students learn. For decades, AIR has conducted studies of teacher professional learning and helped practitioners use evidence to develop, implement, test, and scale professional learning programs.
AIR conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the effects of professional development programs on teacher instruction and student outcomes.