Did Congress make the right fixes to the rules governing funding for teaching and learning in ESSA? Kind of, according to AIR expert Jane Coggshall, in this blog post.
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 ...
At any given moment, between 60 million and 80 million Americans count on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for health coverage. AIR helps clients translate policy into practice and improve the reach and effectiveness of Medicaid and CHIP.
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 ...
In this commentary published in the Hill, Dan Goldhaber, AIR vice president and director of CALDER, and John C. White, Louisiana state superintendent of education, discuss the importance of formal mentoring for teachers during their career training.
AIR is working with RAND to evaluate the strategic human capital reform efforts of three school districts and a cluster of charter management organizations identified by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Among preliminary findings, the authors assert that the sustainability of the reforms studied relies on ...
Achieving Common Core-aligned mathematics instruction is not easy. AIR has teamed up with the Center for Education Policy at Harvard University to offer high-quality professional development to help teachers, schools, and districts improve their mathematics instruction.
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.
The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) offers tools and techniques that enable leaders to gauge staff concerns and program use in order to give each person the necessary supports to ensure success. Taking Charge of Change is a readable introduction to this method of predicting teacher behavior during a change process. ...
The U.S. Department of Education has renewed its focus on ensuring that all students—especially those in under-resourced communities—have access to excellent educators. By June of 2015, all states must engage education stakeholders on locally-developed solutions to ensure every student has effective educators. This discussion guide is designed to help educators, ...