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School Reform and Effectiveness

AIR’s efforts in the area of school reform and effectiveness encompass a broad range of issues, including comprehensive school reform, turnaround schools, and standards-based reform, as well as policies and practices that influence teacher effectiveness. We conduct evaluations and critical reviews of the research, identify promising and proven practices, and provide tools and technical assistance to help implement them.

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Recent Reports

• The Ripple Effect

  After providing a short historical overview of the changing role of school principals, the brief presents two policy perspectives on principal effectiveness and, finally, introduces a research-based framework for defining principal effectiveness.

• Characteristics of Public School Districts in the United States: Results from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey

  This report presents selected findings from the public school district data file of the 2007–08 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). SASS is a nationally representative sample survey of public, private, and Bureau of Indian Education-funded (BIE) K–12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

• Making the Move: Transition Strategies at California Schools with High Graduation Rates

  AIR, as a partner in the California Comprehensive Center at WestEd, worked with the K-12 Innovation and Improvement Office (formerly the Middle Grades Improvement Office) at the California Department of Education to conduct a study on student transitions from the middle grades to high school.

Recent Projects

• Technical Assistance to New York State Districts for ELLs to Help Turn Around Low-Achieving Schools

  Leaders in New York contracted with AIR in 2005 when they wanted to know which practices and strategies were working for ELLs in their schools and districts. On behalf of the New York State Education Department and the New York City Department of Education, AIR has engaged schools and districts cited as being in corrective action throughout the state of New York.

• National Charter School Resource Center

  The National Charter School Resource Center at AIR, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is designed to aid development of high-quality charter schools. The center organizes conferences, publishes a monthly newsletter, leads an ongoing series of webinars, and supports a variety of technical assistance focused on critical issues facing the charter school community.

• Boston Public Schools: Turnaround Using Increased Learning Time

  Boston Public Schools has partnered with the National Center on Time & Learning to turn around two low-performing Boston middle schools using the Turnaround Using Increased Learning Time (TILT) model. As the external evaluator, AIR will assess fidelity of implementation and the impact of the program on academic and nonacademic student outcomes. AIR will conduct teacher surveys once per year, site visits twice per year, and document review.