Zero tolerance policies were born out of fear and even desperation. After the 1999 school shootings in Colorado, some educators and public figures adopted a tough law-and-order stance; but, instead of deterrence, we got a discipline regime of mass suspensions. In this blog post, AIR's Peter Cookson argues that zero ...
Taking advanced courses in high school predicts a broad array of positive outcomes, yet students from certain backgrounds have been excluded from these courses historically. To address this problem, more than 60 districts in Washington state implemented a policy that automatically enrolled all qualified high school students in advanced coursework. ...
Education and health policy experts from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) are available to the media to discuss the implications of President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address to the nation on Wednesday, January 27, 2010. AIR, a nonpartisan not-for-profit behavior and social science research organization based ...
Some of the nation’s lowest-performing schools implementing a school intervention model funded by a School Improvement Grant (SIG) used more practices intended to improve student achievement than similar schools that didn’t implement a SIG-funded model. However, there was no evidence that SIG directly led to greater use of practices or ...
In this blog post, Matthew Soldner argues that, as Congress works on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the need for far better research and access to federal student aid data should be high on its agenda.
Experts from AIR will present at several sessions during the annual Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) research conference, being held November 8-10 in Washington, D.C. APPAM is a professional organization dedicated to improving public policy and management by fostering excellence in research, analysis, and education. This is ...
Both the formal and informal education communities are increasingly focused on fostering opportunities for social and emotional learning (SEL) and the link between SEL and youth outcomes. This self-reflection tool is designed to help afterschool program staff reflect upon their own social and emotional competencies and their ability to support ...
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.
School improvement policy for the past few decades has been characterized by mandated lists of activities designed to stimulate a dramatic turnaround in student achievement. In the long run, this policy approach did not engender the necessary school-level changes. This brief demonstrates why new policies must aim to get the ...
Susan Therriault is an education researcher whose work straddles equity, K-12 school improvement, and policy. In this Q&A, she describes her career and her work with the COVID-19 Equity in Education project.