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Equity in Education

For low-income and minority students, education is the key to success and upward mobility. But evidence has shown in past decades that education has not been acting as the Great Equalizer. AIR's work covers a broad range of equity issues in education, through initiatives including the Equity Project and the Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research Speaker Series.

 

Latest Work

26 Apr 2017
Brief

The Income Share Agreement Landscape: 2017 and Beyond

This final brief in a series about ISAs explores the current state of the income share agreement market and highlights opportunities and threats to expansion.
Topic: 
Higher Education and Career Readiness, Higher Education, Equity in Education
1 Jan 2017
ESSA

ESSA │Educator Equity

Every student deserves teachers and leaders who can help them achieve their potential. Yet research consistently shows that many students lack access to excellent educators.

Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
1 Jan 2017
ESSA

ESSA │Low-Performing Schools

AIR has an extensive range of services dedicated to providing technical assistance support for low performing schools through our District and School Improvement Center as well as our research and evaluation services.

Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, District and School Improvement, Equity in Education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
1 Jan 2017
ESSA

ESSA │Accountability

Accountability systems measure the performance and quality of schools and use these results to drive improvements in low-performing schools and report on the annual progress of all schools. The centers that AIR operates can harness the knowledge and experience of our staff to address this kind of request for assistance.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
8 Nov 2016 | 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Event

Strengthening School Partnerships with Native Families and Communities (Webinar)

On November 8, 2016, join the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest and Pacific for a free webinar on research-based resources to help educators strengthen Native family and community engagement in student learning.
Oct 2016
Project

North American Poverty Study

In the U.S. and many other countries, there’s a well-developed infrastructure for counting the number of people in poverty. The North American Poverty Study seeks to move beyond that to answer questions regarding the changing conditions of poverty, how those conditions differ across places and “poverty types,” and how those in poverty respond to these differing conditions.
16 Sep 2016
Brief

How Loan-Averse Young Adults View Income Share Agreements

This brief, the fourth in a series about ISAs, addresses evidence that suggests loan aversion may be especially prevalent among underserved and underrepresented students. The brief concludes that ISAs could provide an alternative to student loans—in particular, for loan-averse individuals whose views of student debt are determined primarily by negative experiences with debt among family and friends, thereby removing one key barrier to college-going for this population.
Topic: 
Higher Education and Career Readiness, Higher Education, Equity in Education
14 Sep 2016
Brief

Equality and Quality in U.S. Education: Systemic Problems, Systemic Solutions

This paper enters the debate about how U.S. schools might address long-standing disparities in educational and economic opportunities while improving the educational outcomes for all students. The aim is to spark fruitful discussion among educators, policymakers, and researchers.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
26 May 2016
Report

Ready to Lead: Designing Residencies for Better Principal Preparation

With so much attention focused on the importance of teachers, the significant role that principals play advancing instructional improvement, educational equity, and success for all students is frequently overlooked. Principal residency is one innovative approach to improving principal preparation that has shown promise for ensuring new principals are ready to lead.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Principal Preparation and Performance
9 May 2016
Blog Post

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Can We Stop Treating the NAEP as a Rorschach Test?

NAEP results are Rorschach Tests for policy wonks—a golden chance for free-association policy speculation. Small fluctuations in average scores on NAEP give rise to big explanations. Forget the quibbling over tiny differences in test scores; it’s time to rebuild schools on evidence-based, comprehensive policies that have been shown to work in the real world for all students. In this blog post, Peter Cookson says to fix inequities we need to get over our policy taste for quick fixes and silver bullets.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
25 Feb 2016
Blog Post

Cookson,_Peter_3.jpg

Making ESSA Work One Principal at a Time

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) puts each state in the driver’s seat for making its own K-12 policy. In this blog post, Peter Cookson discusses what this means for educational equity.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Principal Preparation and Performance
9 Jan 2016
Podcast

EdCast: Speaking of Equity #1 - A Better Education Workforce

In this podcast, Peter Cookson talks with Education Policy Center and Center on Great Teachers and Leaders Director Angela Minnici about the importance of providing all students with access to effective teachers and school leaders. The GTL Center is currently working closely with states to design and implement State Plans to Ensure Equitable Access, including identifying the root causes of inequitable access to effective educators in each state’s context.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Principal Preparation and Performance, Teacher Preparation and Performance
1 Jul 2015
Blog Post

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An Education Bill of Rights: Is Arne Duncan Onto Something?

In this blog post, Peter Cookson says it's time to address the idea of educational rights, asserting that the arc of justice needs to bend in the direction of a universal, free public school system where excellence is distributed not by zip code, skin color, or socio-economic status but as a right for all children.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education
12 Jun 2015
Blog Post

Want a Faster, Cheaper Way to Get a College Degree? Start in High School

On the traditional school path, Step 1 is graduating from high school, Step 2 is going to college, and Step 3 is earning a credential or degree; but overall, only about 59 percent of high school graduates who make it to Step 2 finish Step 3, earning a degree or credential within six years. In this blog post, AIR senior researcher Clarisse Haxton describes the Early College model, which allows students to combine Steps 1 and 2 and enroll in college courses and earn college credits while still in high school.
Topic: 
Higher Education and Career Readiness, College and Career Readiness, Higher Education, P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education
1 Jun 2015
Toolkit

Equitable Access Supports: Implementation Playbook and Equitable Access Toolkit

To help education leaders ensure that all students receive equitable access to excellent educators, the U.S. Department of Education has launched the Excellent Educators for All initiative, which requires each state, alongside stakeholders, to create and implement a State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators. To support states as they develop and implement these high-quality plans, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders has created the Implementation Playbook and the Equitable Access Toolkit.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Teacher Preparation and Performance
18 May 2015 | 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Event

Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research: Do You Need a Bachelor’s to Join the Middle Class?

Traditionally, the bachelor's degree has been seen as the doorway to the middle class for most Americans, but is this still the case? In an economic environment increasingly defined by new technologies and global market places--does it make sense to spend four years in college getting a liberal arts degree? Mark Schneider, Vice President and Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, and Anthony Carnevale, Professor and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, will tackle these questions and more in a lively exchange.
14 May 2015
Blog Post

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Place Matters: So Do Schools and Teachers

If place heavily impacts social mobility, could strengthening schools be the key to overcoming the effects of growing up in a poor neighborhood? Peter Cookson, AIR principal researcher, explores this question in a blog post for the Education Policy Center.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, District and School Improvement, Equity in Education
18 Feb 2015 | 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Event

Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research: Richard Murnane

For low-income and minority students, education is the key to success and upward mobility. But evidence has shown in past decades that education has not been acting as the Great Equalizer. The Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research speaker series brings to light the most promising research illuminating the educational pathways to upward mobility. The series features some of the nation’s top scholars who are uncovering innovative and insightful evidence about what inhibits and enhances mobility.
30 Jan 2015
Longform Essay

Opening the Doors to Opportunity for All: Setting a Research Agenda for the Future

In 2014, the Equity Project at AIR hosted its first Research Roundtable. There, some of the nation’s top educational researchers drafted a research agenda addressing some of the long-term challenges facing American public schools educating students from low-income and minority families. Leaving micro-reforms to others, we asked tough questions that researchers could answer for those working to make public education as the gateway to opportunity for all.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education
5 Nov 2014 | 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Event

Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research: Isabel V. Sawhill

For low-income and minority students, education is the key to success and upward mobility. But evidence has shown in past decades that education has not been acting as the Great Equalizer. The Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research speaker series brings to light the most promising research illuminating the educational pathways to upward mobility. The series features some of the nation’s top scholars who are uncovering innovative and insightful evidence about what inhibits and enhances mobility.
6 Oct 2014
Blog Post

Coggshall Jane.jpg

Jane Coggshall

Time to Reboot Educator Equity Plans

In this blog post, Jane Coggshall explains that inequitable access is not just the result of neglect or funding disparities, but the result of a series of systemic failures, from how we prepare teachers to work in high-need schools to how we design teachers’ jobs.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Teacher Preparation and Performance
15 Sep 2014
Spotlight

Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research Speaker Series

For low-income and minority students, education is the key to success and upward mobility. But in the past several decades, evidence shows that education has not been acting as the Great Equalizer. The Breakthroughs in Education and Social Mobility Research speaker series is dedicated to bringing to light the most promising research illuminating the educational pathways to upward mobility. The series features some of the nation’s top scholars who are uncovering innovative and insightful evidence about what inhibits mobility and what enhances mobility.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education
Sep 2014
Project

The Equity Project

Educational opportunity is a cherished part of the American story of upward mobility and social justice. The Equity Project at AIR is committed to building an inclusive and vibrant future through education.
15 Apr 2014
Video

Equity Project Research Roundtable

On April 30, 2014, AIR in Washington, D.C., hosted 28 top scholars in educational equity for the first Equity Research Roundtable.

Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education
30 Jan 2014
Blog Post

Cookson,_Peter_3.jpg

The Long War on Poverty Will Be Won With Vision and Grit

In his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Johnson launched the War on Poverty, beginning with these words: “I will be brief, for our time is necessarily short and our agenda is already long.” In this blog post, Peter Cookson argues that progress has been made, and that technology, a new spirit of commitment to greater equality, and deeper research have given us new tools with which to tackle poverty; we need only find the will and a way of working together for the greater good.
Topic: 
P-12 Education and Social Development, Equity in Education, Families, Communities, and Social Systems
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P-12 Education and Social Development

  • Afterschool and Expanded Learning
  • Charter Schools and School Choice
  • District and School Improvement
  • Equity in Education
  • English Language Learners
  • Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
  • Good Behavior Game
  • High School Improvement
  • International Comparisons in Education
  • International Comparisons in Education
  • Longitudinal Education Studies
  • Mathematics Education
  • National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
  • No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
  • Principal Preparation and Performance
  • Professional Development in Education
  • Response to Intervention (RTI)
  • School Crime and Safety
  • School Climate and Safety
  • School Discipline
  • School Finance
  • Special Education
  • STEM
  • Teacher Preparation and Performance
  • Technology for Teaching and Learning

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