Despite uncertainty about the start of the 2020-2021 school year, one thing is clear: Learning will take multiple forms and things will likely change as the school year progresses. AIR researchers created this resource for families and caregivers to help foster positive conditions for learning at home.

Lynn Holdheide, managing technical assistance consultant at AIR, and senior advisor and former director for the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, explains how teacher preparation programs are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. She also shares some innovative ways that school districts and programs are preparing teachers during uncertain times.

Eboni Howard is a nationally recognized expert in child and family development, implementation science, and mixed-methods evaluation approaches. In this Q&A, she describes her work on such topics as early childhood systems change, Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, and professional development.

Keeping an eye on issues of equity in remote learning environments can seem overwhelming, particularly when moving teaching and learning from the classroom to an online platform. Taking the time to address digital accessibility has an overarching benefit: Universally designed and accessible learning materials can benefit all learners.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, teachers, principals, and students have had to quickly adjust to distance learning or e-learning. Although data were gathered before the pandemic, the results of the spring 2020 release of Volume 2 of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) offer insights about teachers and principals that may help us better understand the challenges they are experiencing now and about how to support them.

Through home visiting, child development specialists, speech therapists, and other professionals work with families and their children in their homes to assess children’s development and health, as well as bolster parenting skills. Consistent, correct use of evidence-based practices by practitioners such as home visitors can help improve children’s outcomes. AIR recently conducted a study of a parent-implemented language-based intervention used in the home visiting context.

Among the benefits of going to college are higher employment rates, higher earnings, and healthier lifestyles. Yet many young people who enroll in college don’t make it to graduation day. In a RISE webinar, Rachel Dinkes and Audrey Peek highlighted key findings and implications from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, AIR’s Megan Eccleston plunged unexpectedly into a once-in-a-lifetime extracurricular challenge: organizing a grassroots volunteer initiative to help hospitals desperate for face masks and other supplies. With her professional expertise—and a can-do spirit—Megan has built a multi-state coalition of thousands of volunteers that has delivered nearly one million masks to hospitals in just three months.

AIR early childhood development and education expert, Ann-Marie Faria, Ph.D., focuses on quantitative research in early childhood settings, drawing on her experience as a former kindergarten and elementary school teacher. In this Q&A, she discusses her research at AIR, focused on documenting and improving quality in the early childhood mixed delivery system.

May 17 marks the 66th anniversary of the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. The court’s unanimous ruling outlawed racial segregation in public schools, citing a violation of the equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Gretchen Weber, vice president for Policy, Practice, and Systems Change at AIR, has always championed teachers and advocated for meaningful teacher appreciation every day of the year. In this post, she discusses the challenges teachers are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.