The Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five initiative supports states to create plans to facilitate collaboration and coordination among existing early childhood care and education programs. AIR has partnered with four states—California, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota—to support their work as they expand access to high-quality early childhood care and ...
The Reauthorizing ESEA Pocket Guides are written by AIR experts to assist policymakers and educators as they consider changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
A December 2015 AIR study finds that Transitional Kindergarten, the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for young five-year-olds in California, appears to improve children’s school readiness in critical areas of academic learning and development. Researchers Karen Manship and Heather Quick explain how and suggest next steps. ...
California students who had attended Transitional Kindergarten were more advanced than their peers in language, literacy, mathematics and executive function, early results of a study by AIR show. The differences amount to as much as a five-month head start in kindergarten. Transitional Kindergarten grew out of California’s Kindergarten Readiness Act, ...
Since 2004, San Francisco expanded preschool access for children in San Francisco County, regardless of family income through its Preschool for All (PFA) initiative. In December 2005, AIR began a joint process evaluation to assess the implementation of PFA in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. The process evaluation was ...
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.
California youth in foster care have lower performance in math and English language arts, experience more frequent changes in where they attend school, drop out of high school in greater numbers, and graduate at significantly lower rates. AIR was a key partner in Education Equals Partnership, a statewide initiative established ...
Defining overall quality measures of physician performance with respect to chronic disease management and preventive care for older adults and to define strategies for quality improvement and physician recognition programs.
States have prioritized documenting and improving the quality of early childhood education programs by developing quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs). This report describes the quality improvement efforts of early childhood education programs participating in Iowa’s voluntary quality rating and improvement system, the Iowa Quality Rating System (QRS). The findings ...
AIR was asked to identify measures that would (1) gauge the progress of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) toward excellence and equity in the well-being of children, adults, and families; (2) function as a “dashboard” for monitoring; and (3) allow stakeholders to gauge the ...