Student learning measures have rapidly become common in teacher evaluation systems across the United States. This report provides an overview of key findings from the nearly 20 studies of SLO measures that have been conducted to date, along with considerations for future research and for practice.
We know that instructional quality exerts a key factor in influencing student achievement. In this blog post, Angela Minnici and Jenni Fipaza argue the need to better leverage teacher expertise to improve outcomes for all students by shifting the focus away from individual teacher performance to the collective performance of ...
Did Congress make the right fixes to the rules governing funding for teaching and learning in ESSA? Kind of, according to AIR expert Jane Coggshall, in this blog post.
What kind of research designs would help teacher preparation providers improve their programs? On April 11, 2017 AIR brought together 35 researchers, teacher educators, school district leaders, and other stakeholders to discuss research designs that would answer the kinds of questions that providers have about their programs and how to ...
Are teachers working in charter schools more effective in improving student outcomes compared to teachers working in traditional public schools? In this blog post, Umut Özek, a principal researcher at AIR, describes a new study in which he and his fellow authors examined the disparities in teacher effectiveness between charter ...
How well do classroom observation scores help us understand how much a teacher has added to his or her students’ achievement? As Rachel Garrett describes in this blog post, new research raises questions about the wisdom of basing high-stakes, summative teacher evaluations chiefly on classroom observations. ...
The lack of easy data sharing between K–12 systems and teacher preparation may be costly, in terms of the quality of instruction by new teachers. In this report from the field, Jenny DeMonte describes the efforts of some states to actively share data.
As the COVID-19 pandemic turns into a longer-term crisis with no end in sight, planning for the fall raises even more questions for teachers about school policies and their own futures. In this final installment of a series, Gretchen Weber discusses how the pandemic could be the force that finally ...
On February 12th, a New York Times story linked to a video of a teacher in a well-known New York City charter school losing her temper and humiliating a first grader. In this blog post, Angela Minnici and David Osher contend that the video and some reactions to it reveal ...
Getting a job is about more than academic performance. In this blog post, Kimberly Kendziora discusses the growing body of research on the importance of social and emotional skills, such as self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills.