News
To view past AIR News, please visit our news archive.
June 2009
News Release: AIR Releases New International Benchmarking Report That Measures State and District Student Math Performance Against World
A new international grading index that provides states, school districts and policymakers with a way to determine where their students rank in comparison with their peers around the world finds that U.S. elementary school students show average performance, at best, in mathematics and are widely outperformed by their counterparts in several Asian countries, including Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR and Japan. The report, issued today by AIR, based on international performance benchmarks in math for 4th and 8th grade students concluded that only 4th graders in a handful of states – among them Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Kansas and Vermont – are learning at B or B- levels when compared with students internationally.
View
full report
How Does Your State Compare With Other Countries in Math?
News Release: AIR to Release New Report on International Benchmarking for 4th and 8th Grade Math Students
AIR will release a new report on international benchmarking for 4th and 8th grade math students during a June 16, 2009 event at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. The release will be followed by a panel discussion that includes Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitch Chester and senior officials of the National Governors’ Association (NGA) and the National Association of State Boards of Education.
News Release: American Institutes for Research Hosts Seminar on the Role of Consumers in Health Reform
AIR will host a seminar, “Ready or Not: The Role of Consumers in Health Reform,” on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at its Corporate Headquarters at 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C. The seminar features leading health experts from AIR, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing in Canberra, Australia, and Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.
News Release: American Institutes for Research Experts Participate in Institute of Education Sciences Research Conference
Experts from AIR will participate in the 4th annual Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Research Conference, which is being held June 7-9, 2009, in Washington, D.C. Two AIR experts will focus on using international assessments like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to measure and improve student performance within the United States. Another expert will discuss the impact of professional development models and strategies on teacher practice and student achievement in early reading.
News Release: AIR Vice President Schneider to Discuss New AEI Report on College Graduation Rates
American Institutes for Research (AIR) Vice President Mark Schneider will present a new American Enterprise Institute (AEI) report, Diplomas and Dropouts: Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t), at an AEI event on Wednesday, June 3, 2009. The report was co-authored by Schneider, a visiting scholar for AEI, and finds significant variation in the graduation rates across 1,300 U.S. colleges and universities.
May 2009
News Release: AIR Expert Participates in a Congressional Briefing on the Role Health and Nutrition Play in Basic Education for the Developing World
Brad Strickland of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a featured speaker at a May 22, 2009 Congressional briefing on the importance that health and nutrition play in providing basic education in developing countries. The briefing is sponsored by the Basic Education Coalition in cooperation with Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota.
News Release: American Institutes for Research Expert Dr. David Osher Discusses High School Dropout Rates
Dr. David Osher, a vice president at AIR and an expert on children’s mental health, behavioral and development issues, will discuss strategies for reducing high school dropout rates and improving the attitudes of students toward their schools during the Cleveland Dropout Prevention Summit being held on May 22-23, 2009.
News Release: AIR Study Plumbs the Differences between Massachusetts’ Solid Showing and Hong Kong’s World-Class Performance
Higher expectations for achievement and greater exposure to more difficult and complex mathematics are among the major difference between Hong Kong, home of the world’s top-performing 4th grade math students, and Massachusetts, which is the highest scoring state on the U.S. National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), according to a report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR).
News Release: AIR’s National High School Center to Host Webinar on Educating High School English Language Learners
The National High School Center, a project of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), will host a Webinar Thursday, May 14, 2009 on “Effectively Educating English Language Learners at the High School Level: What Research and Practice Tell Us.”
News Release: AIR’s Scientific Evidence in Education (SEE) Forums to Host Discussion on Research on School Math Curricula
The Scientific Evidence in Education (SEE) Forums, a project of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), will host a policy luncheon forum on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 on “Building a Foundation for the Future: A Discussion on the Latest Research on Elementary School Math Curricula.” The forum will be held at Charles Sumner School in Washington, D.C.
April 2009
News Release: The American Educational Research Association Honors Four Experts Connected With AIR by Inducting Them into the AERA Fellows Program
Four individuals associated with AIR were formally inducted April 14, 2009 into the Fellows Program of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) during the organization’s 90th annual meeting, held in San Diego.
News Release: More than 55 AIR Researchers to Present at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association
More than 55 researchers from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will participate
in the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), which
will be held April 13-17, 2009 in San Diego, California. The meeting attracts submissions
from leading education researchers from across the United States and around the
world.
AIR presentations, sessions, dates,
locations, and times
News Release: Deworm the World Moves its Headquarters to AIR’s Washington Offices
Deworm the World, an organization devoted to improving school attendance and student learning in developing countries by reducing the number of children infected with parasitic worms, has moved its headquarters to the corporate offices of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Washington, D.C. AIR committed to support the organization at the 2008 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. Deworm the World will treat at least 10 million children with deworming drugs by September 2009 and millions more in the future.
March 2009
News Release: AIR Experts Participate in the Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society
Experts for the AIR participated in the annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), which attracts academics, researchers and practitioners in the fields of comparative education, international development, and global and regional studies.
News Release: Researchers for AIR Present at Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development
AIR researchers will present at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), which will take place from April 2-4, 2009 in Denver, Colo.
News Release: AIR Experts to Present at the Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Researchers for the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will participate in the 24th annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), which is being held April 2-4, 2009 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
News Release: Research Experts for AIR Participate in Council for Exceptional Children Conference
Experts from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will be participating in the 2009 annual conference of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) taking place April 1-4, 2009, in Seattle, Wash.
News Release: AIR Plays a Major Role in the Digest of Education Statistics, the Nation’s Authoritative Source for U.S. Education Statistics
AIR played a significant role in creating the 44th edition of the Digest of Education Statistics, the nation’s most authoritative and comprehensive reference for statistics about education in the United States. The Digest was released on March 18, 2009 by the National Center for Education Statistics.
News Release: American Institutes for Research Board Member Alan Krueger Nominated for Senior U.S. Treasury Post
Sol H. Pelavin, president and CEO of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), on Monday, March 9, 2009 praised the selection of Alan Krueger, the award-winning Princeton economist who has served on AIR’s Board of Directors since 2002, to serve as assistant secretary of economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department.
February 2009
News Release: AIR Researchers Have Significant Presence at Annual Conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
Researchers from AIR will have a significant presence at the annual conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), being held March 1st to March 3rd at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Crystal City, Va.
News Release: Daniel C. Montoya, Former Executive Director of a White House Panel on HIV/AIDS, Joins AIR
Daniel C. Montoya, a leading healthcare communications executive and former executive director of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, has joined AIR to lead the organization’s expanding efforts to apply research to practice in helping health providers and consumers.
News Release: AIR’s Garet and Yoon to Speak at NSDC’s Launch of Research Effort to Measure Effectiveness of Professional Learning
Dr. Michael Garet and Dr. Kwang Suk Yoon of AIR are featured speakers at a February 4 event hosted by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) to launch a multi-year research project aimed at measuring the effectiveness of teacher professional learning at the state level. The effort is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MetLife Foundation, NSDC, and the Wallace Foundation. The event includes the release of a new report by Linda Darling-Hammond and researchers from the Stanford University School Redesign Network, Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad.
January 2009
News Release: AIR Launches Project to Train Teachers of English in Ethiopia
AIR, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has launched the Teach English for Life Learning (TELL) project aimed at improving the skills of 20,000 6th, 7th and 8th grade English teachers across Ethiopia. AIR will employ a cascading teaching model, which involves developing “master trainers” who will instruct carefully selected “teacher trainers,” who in turn will educate 20,000 classroom teachers.
News Release: Majority of Federal Education Dollars Are Spent on Instruction and Instructional Support by Local School Districts
Despite NCLB’s increased focus on targeting federal resources to help students with the greatest needs, all federal education programs combined have not closed the funding gap between the highest- and lowest-poverty school districts around the country, according to a new analysis conducted by AIR for the U.S. Department of Education.
December 2008
News Release: Austin Public School Officials Offer Their Perspective on AIR’s International Mathematics Benchmarking Study
Austin school officials have responded to an American Institutes for Research (AIR) study that compares the mathematics performance of students in 11 U.S. cities with that of their international peers, calling it “an interesting and important paper that allows us to think about where American school districts stand in comparison to students around the world.”
Austin’s perspective on International Benchmarking
November 2008
News Release: AIR’s National Center for Technology Innovation Hosts a Conference for Technology Innovators
AIR’s National Center for Technology Innovation is hosting the 2008 Technology Innovators Conference on November 20 and 21, 2008 at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. The conference will explore the latest international technology trends and challenges, focusing on how to use technology to educate tomorrow’s leaders.
News Release: A Study of San Francisco and Oakland School Districts Finds Support for “Student-Based” Funding Policies, Despite Increased Workload
A new study by AIR examines the implementation of “student-based” funding policies in California’s San Francisco and Oakland school districts and finds that although the policies create extra work, they are preferred by district- and school-level staff and, to some degree, result in directing additional funding to schools with greater needs.
A Tale of Two Districts
Study
A Tale of Two
Districts Appendices
Related Study: Implementation
of the Weighted Student Formula Policy in San Francisco
Summary:
Understanding San Francisco’s Weighted Student Formula Policy
News Release: AIR Awarded a Contract to Establish the Child Welfare Technical Assistance Implementation Center for U.S. Western States and Territories
AIR and its partners have been awarded a federal contract to establish the Child Welfare Technical Assistance Implementation Center, which will support child welfare services in western states and U.S. territories. The five-year, $8.8 million contract was awarded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
October 2008
News Release: AIR’s Scientific Evidence in Education (SEE) Forums to Review Recent Research on Teacher Induction and Professional Development
The Scientific Evidence in Education (SEE) Forums, a project of AIR, will host a policy forum on Thursday, October 30, 2008 on “Meeting the Teacher Quality Imperative: New Evidence on Teacher Induction and Professional Development.” The forum will be held at Charles Sumner School in Washington, D.C.
News Release: First-Ever Comparison: Student Math Achievement in 11 Major U.S. Cities Versus Their International Peers
Students in six major U.S. cities are performing on par or better in mathematics than their peers in other countries in grades 4 and 8, according to a new study by AIR. However, students from five other major cities are not faring as well, and overall, U.S. student performance in mathematics falls off from elementary to middle school grades — and remains behind many industrialized nations, particularly Asian nations.
News Release: Mark S. Schneider, U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics, Joins AIR
Mark Schneider, who has been serving as the Commissioner of Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education, will join the American Institutes for Research (AIR) on October 16, 2008, as a vice president and will lead special initiatives in the Education, Human Development, and the Workforce Division.
News Release: AIR’s National Center on Response to Intervention Conducts Scientifically Rigorous Reviews of Tools and Interventions for RTI Frameworks
AIR’s National Center on Response to Intervention has established a process to conduct scientifically rigorous annual evaluations of commercially available tools and interventions for Response to Intervention (RTI) frameworks.
To view past AIR News, please visit our news archive.