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.
Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, AIR conducted a descriptive study in San Francisco Unified School District and the Oakland Unified School District on the Weighted Student Funding policy, sometimes referred to as student-based funding, for the Regional Educational Laboratory-West.
Established by AIR nearly 20 years ago, the Center for Special Education Finance (CSEF) has assisted the federal government and many states in measuring special education costs and expenditures and in formulating fiscal policy.
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.
Too many new principals say they are underprepared for critical leadership tasks which—combined with high job demands, poor support, and increased accountability—raises principal stress to a boiling point. In this blog post, Matthew Clifford describes 18 “high leverage” state-level policies that hold promise for increasing innovation and improving principal preparation. ...
A new guide prepared by experts from the American Institutes for Research (AIR), Mathematica Policy Research and Chesapeake Research Associates offers information and strategies to help states evaluate the success of education reform efforts they are conducting under funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). ...
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) puts each state in the driver’s seat for making its own K-12 policy. In this blog post, Peter Cookson discusses what this means for educational equity.
While states provided direct support to struggling schools in the past, ESSA places more responsibility on districts by requiring them to select evidence-based interventions—which can take the form of programs, policies, or practices—to help these schools improve.