Before 1975, only one in five children with disabilities attended public school. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act changed that. AIR Managing Director Louis Danielson discusses the evolution of the IDEA and its continued commitment to greater educational accountability, inclusion, and quality for all students. ...
Having a more effective teacher or principal can substantially improve students’ academic outcomes. This brief examines the effects of using research-based performance measures to evaluate educators and provide them with feedback, and of offering them bonuses based on their performance ratings.
In this brief, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders examines the impact of the student loan crisis on the teaching profession. We offer potentially promising and sustainable solutions that require reimagining current programming to include cost-effective and responsive solutions.
In this blog post, David Osher, AIR vice president and international expert on school climate, social emotional learning, and student support, shares an interesting perspective about making a difference through school climate.
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 ...
Many people assume that smaller classes lead to more individualized instruction and hence to better student achievement. But do they? In this 90-second video interview, senior researcher Michael Hansen argues that's not always the case.
How well do classroom observation scores help us understand how much a teacher has added to his or her students’ achievement? As Rachel Garrett describes in this blog post, new research raises questions about the wisdom of basing high-stakes, summative teacher evaluations chiefly on classroom observations. ...
Developing reliable and valid national-level survey measures of instructional processes and other classroom conditions related to learning has proven exceptionally difficult. This report focuses on the size of the impact that can be expected from instruction and teachers on student achievement and on the conceptualization of measures of instruction and ...
As district leaders search for the best ways to improve student learning with the Common Core State Standards, some early implementers are giving us an opportunity to learn from their experience.This brief describes Sacramento City Unified School District’s approach to developing units of study that guide teachers’ classroom practice. The ...
The Iowa Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) system was designed to provide career pathways and compensation structures to attract, retain and reward effective teachers; to promote continuous improvement in Iowa’s teaching workforce; and to increase student academic achievement. This report updates the Year 1 implementation and outcome findings based on ...