Competency-based education is an educational approach that focuses on mastery of an expanded set of competencies—rather than seat time—as a measure of student learning. This brief explores how states and districts can define learner competencies that reflect the full range of knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for students to achieve ...
In a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that spanned more than a decade, AIR found that attending a high school with an explicit focus on deeper learning resulted in positive short-term outcomes, but few longer-term outcomes. In this Q&A, AIR Principal Researcher Kristina Zeiser and Senior Researcher Catherine Bitter share insights about ...
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
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 ...
Given persistent failure rates and mounting student debt, how prepared students are to enter and succeed in college is suddenly everyone’s business. According to Mark Schneider, in this blog post, ACT data shows many students ready to leave for college are not ready academically in at least one area. ...
In his final State of the Union address, President Obama said, “We live in a time of extraordinary change… and whether we like it or not, the pace of this change will only accelerate.” In this blog post, AIR’s Peter Cookson says the key to dealing with this change is ...
At 21, many foster youth “age out” of financial benefits and supports from the child welfare system—before they even finish college. Given the challenges they face, it’s not surprising that only 3 to 10 percent of them earn undergraduate degrees compared with 34 percent of young adults who weren’t in ...
The School Improvement Grant (SIG) program will expire as ESSA is implemented, but the challenges of low-performing schools have not. SIG provided some promising examples, as well as caveats that can challenge and inform those of us who believe our nation’s most disadvantaged students deserve better. In our latest blog ...