ESSA Co-Pilot: Implementing Your State's Plan
AIR’s ESSA Co-Pilot provides information on key topics to help you implement your state's plan.
New Resources
November 12, 2018 - Long Story Short: Why Is Social and Emotional Learning Important for Equity in Education? This short video offers a concrete operational definition for SEL, suggests ways that equity benefits from the use of SEL in the classroom, and provides some quick questions that may be used for consideration.
November 9, 2018 - Strategies for Implementing the Teacher Leadership and Compensation Program in Iowa School Districts. The Iowa Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) system was designed to provide career pathways and compensation structures to attract, retain, and reward effective teachers; to promote continuous improvement in Iowa’s teaching workforce; and to increase student academic achievement. While working on an independent evaluation, AIR conducted case studies of six purposely selected Iowa school districts to identify promising local strategies for implementing TLC. AIR identified 14 general strategies perceived to be effective across two or more of these districts involved.
November 6, 2018 - Beyond Accountability: Improving the Use of Information to Support Teaching and Learning Through Continuous Improvement Cycles. In this report, AIR experts share their findings from the two-year Beyond Accountability continuous improvement project, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With AIR support, four school districts identified a specific problem of practice and used plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles, an iterative process, to develop, test, and revise their strategies to address that challenge.
November 1, 2018 - What Does Improvement Science Look Like In Real Classrooms? Read about the Better Math Teaching Network, "a community of researchers, teachers and instructional leaders in New England working together to make algebra teaching more student-centered." This KQED story includes the work of AIR managing and principal researchers.
October 23, 2018 - Quick Guide on Making School Climate Improvements. The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments at AIR has created a useful Quick Guide for download. Students who learn in positive learning environments that are safe, supportive, and engaging are more likely to improve academically, participate more fully in the classroom, and develop skills that will help them be successful in school and in life. This Quick Guide provides district and school leaders, teachers, school staff, and other members of the school community with the basics on how to initiate, implement, and sustain school climate improvements.
October 19, 2018 - ESSA│Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)/Response to Intervention (RTI). Across the country local school districts, particularly those challenged by often long-standing achievement gaps and higher mandated standards for student performance, are increasingly turning to tiered system of support frameworks, such as multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) and response to intervention (RTI). AIR has gathered our key resources, links to AIR Centers, related work, and further reading on an ESSA Co-Pilot topic page. Keep checking back for further updates.
October 16, 2018 – Maximizing Student Agency: Implementing and Measuring Student Centered Learning Practices. Student agency is the ability to manage one’s learning and can have significant effects on student achievement. For this study, AIR worked with four New Tech Network (NTN) high schools in three states for to determine which teacher practices help or hinder the development of student agency, and whether these practices are effective across educational contexts and with different student subgroups.
October 16, 2018 – Learning with Others: A Study Exploring the Relationship Between Collaboration, Personalization, and Equity - Final Report. Emerging trends suggest that personalization is often equated with individual learning. This approach to personalization often relies heavily on the use of technology to enable students to learn independently and progress at their own pace. This report describes the findings from a study designed to examine how collaboration is linked to personalization and explore racial/ethnic differences in experiences and benefits associated with collaboration.
October 11, 2018 – Understanding the Every Student Succeeds Act: A Parents’ Guide to the Nation’s Landmark Education Law. The U.S. Secretary of Education has released a publication designed to empower parents and guardians in advocating for their students. This short guide covers many topics including testing and tests, accountability, student-focused activities, as well as others.
October 8, 2018 – NDTAC Guide: Meeting the Literacy Needs of Students in Juvenile Justice Facilities Second Edition. This update to the 2010 Literacy Guide expands upon research-based recommendations and strategies designed to help improve life-long literacy outcomes for students. The guide also includes resources that can be used for further support.
September 24, 2018 – Establishing and Sustaining Networked Improvement Communities: Lessons from Michigan and Minnesota. This REL Midwest report provides information on a method that may be used by educators to improve schools—networked improvement communities (NIC). Although there is practical guidance for how NICs should structure their work, few published accounts describe the process of forming a NIC. This report details lessons learned through REL Midwest's experience working with educators to form NICs, and will be the subject of a REL Midwest webinar on October 9.