Over the past three decades, charter schools have become the most popular form of school choice, especially in urban school districts. Using data from Florida, this study investigates the degree to which differences in teacher quality explain the effectiveness of charter schools.
Education leaders have expressed concern about educators’ moving to different schools—within the same state or in another state—because these moves create costs for the home district and have potential impacts on the equitable distribution of effective educators among schools. This study's findings provide initial insights into the intrastate and interstate ...
What impact do Teach for America (TFA) members have on other teachers' performance? A strategy to "cluster" TFA members in high-need schools contributed to large gains in math achievement, but was found to have little effect on reading skills and no spillover effect on other teachers.
This research synthesis provides practical guidance for evaluating teacher effectiveness that extends beyond teachers' contribution to student achievement gains.
Research findings about teachers and teacher labor markets sometimes seem to defy conventional wisdom. Dan Goldhaber, director of CALDER at the American Institutes for Research and the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, and Katharine Strunk, associate professor of education and policy at the University ...
This paper addresses the teachers’ use of educational research to improve their instructional practice. Based on two qualitative, exploratory studies AIR conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area between 2008 and 2011, researchers found that teachers do appreciate and use research when there is a pressing need. ...
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.
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. ...
Between a quarter and a half of those who complete a teacher preparation program don’t end up teaching after graduation. In our latest blog post, AIR’s Jenny DeMonte encourages policymakers to start tracking this data to help address teacher shortages and improve the teacher pipeline.
In this blog post, David Manzeske discusses his research on principal observation and contends that peer evaluators and principals need careful training in advance and a system to check or calibrate their results as they rate teachers through classroom observations.