A new evaluation of Title III implementation, released by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), found that states and school districts vary widely in how they define English Learners (ELs) and how they set thresholds for achieving proficiency in English. As a ...
Jonathan A. Simonetta is Vice President, International Development at AIR. As Vice President, he mentors researchers, oversees projects, monitors overall project performance, and leads business development for our International Development Division.
In 2019, a grant gave Ohio the opportunity to improve literacy outcomes for children from birth through grade 12 and required educators to use relevant evidence-based practices. AIR experts provided education leaders with trainings on ESSA and evidence-based practices and produced several resources, such as a crosswalk aligning the ESSA ...
AIR evaluations of two federally funded initiatives aimed at revamping chronically low-performing schools in Massachusetts found that students in both programs improved their scores in state tests of English language arts and mathematics. While both programs resulted in widespread improvement, AIR’s evaluations found particularly strong increases in achievement among students ...
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). ...
Yuan Zhang is a senior researcher in the Education Statistics program at AIR. She has over five years of experience providing expert support for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) longitudinal studies branch, including data analyses for various NCES reports, such as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class ...
The sudden influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon created an education crisis in Lebanon that affects Syrian and vulnerable Lebanese children. AIR and the UNICEF Office of Research–Innocenti are leading an independent impact evaluation of Min Ila, a cash transfer program for displaced Syrian children in the governorates of Mount ...
After five years of effort, states have implemented most of the test-based accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and now must focus their efforts on improving poor-performing schools that ...
The California Department of Education contracted AIR to provide information about the implementation and effects of Proposition 227 and of the English Language Acquisition Program (ELAP), which provided funding to support instruction for English Learners in the state. This five-year evaluation informed the Department about the effect on students, schools, ...
The Alabama Reading Initiative, which has drawn national attention, has produced encouraging results among secondary school students in part because of educators who took initial instructions that used a “one size fits all” approach to instruction and modified it to meet their students’ particular needs, according to a report by ...