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 ...
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 ...
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires that states develop and submit a State Plan to the U.S. Department of Education. To ensure a solid foundation for State Plan development and further stakeholder engagement, the Pennsylvania Department of Education asked AIR summarize ...
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. ...
Urban school districts often rely on alternative teacher certification programs to help address ongoing demands for recruiting and hiring qualified teachers. These programs offer pathways into teaching outside of traditional university-based teacher education programs. This report summarizes a multi-year evaluation of the implementation and impacts of one of those programs, ...
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.
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. ...
The National Assessment Governing Board has recently turned increased attention towards the NAEP achievement levels and associated achievement level descriptors. This white paper offers two specific contributions for NAGB to consider as they move forward with plans to develop evidence to support removal of the trial status of the NAEP ...
Many schools hoping to infuse practices with research have encountered challenges, and Battle Creek Public Schools’ experience implementing literary instruction grounded in research is no different. These challenges can serve as lessons for other education leaders, as AIR expert Kerstin Le Floch describes in this In the Field piece. ...