Standards Implementation

Learn more about how we contribute our expertise to standards implementation across education topics:

AIR’s Standards Implementation work supports state and local agencies to create rigorous, cohesive, and comprehensive standards and assessment-aligned systems. Our work is typically focused on one or more of the following core functions, all of which are embedded in research and evidence, and each connected by strong technical assistance:

Planning and facilitating

• Convening and engaging standards and assessment committees
• Conducting landscape scans to inform standards and assessment development
• Analyzing constituent feedback to make data-informed decisions

Developing standards 

• Applying research-informed practices to facilitate standards development
• Convening constituents and experts to revise standards
• Using evidence-based tools and resources to develop standards

Supporting standards implementation

• Facilitating the development of resources that support implementation
• Building capacity to identify high-quality instructional materials that support implementation
• Supporting educators to learn and implement selected instructional practices aligned to vision of standards

Analyzing curricula and assessments

• Performing audits to identify high-quality instructional materials
• Evaluating high-quality instructional materials (e.g., curricula, digital learning platforms, Open Educational Resources) to determine alignment with standards
• Analyzing and reporting on item-level data to determine common misconceptions

Providing psychometric and technical quality assurance

• Scaling assessment data and producing student scores
• Replicating psychometric analyses to ensure accuracy of results
• Calculating accountability metrics
• Reviewing the accuracy of products and technical reports

Conducting alignment studies

• Comparing content of standards or assessments to other state or international standards and assessments (e.g., the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
• Comparing NAEP frameworks and assessments over time
• Validating assessments with a focus on ESSA reporting requirements
• Reviewing items to ensure alignment to standards and test specifications and suitability for students, accessibility, and technical quality

Supporting research

• Providing policy insights from NAEP and state assessment data
• Conducting validity research for states’ peer review processes
• Analyzing and reporting assessment results
• Benchmarking against NAEP and international assessments
• Helping states and districts use standards and assessments to support policy and practice

Building states’ and districts’ capacity to support standards-aligned teaching, learning, and assessment

• Providing research-informed technical assistance to state and local education agencies in virtual and in-person modes
• Analyzing and reporting assessment results to inform accountability systems
• Using co-interpretation of assessment data or curriculum audits to analyze and develop action plans (e.g., providing professional development on assessment literacy to educators)

Producing innovative score reports

• Enhancing score reporting for states’ report cards with user-friendly, data-driven reports and interactive web tools (e.g., data stories, percentile trend analysis, item mapping, AI driven-chat bots designed to report assessment results)
• Conducting user-experience interviews with educators, parents, and policy makers to identify avenues for improving the interpretation and use of student score reports and state assessment report cards