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 ...
Educator performance evaluation systems are a potential tool for improving student achievement by increasing the effectiveness of the educator workforce. This report is based on a study on the implementation of teacher and principal performance measures highlighted by recent research, as well as the impact of providing feedback based on ...
Starting in January, the GED got a lot harder; while the overhaul makes sense, doing well now requires a new level of help that too few studying for it can get. In this blog post, Terry Salinger points to the need for adult charter schools and wraparound services to address ...
The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt “value-added” models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. This study examines how teacher evaluations are affected by incorrectly attributing changes in student's test scores to the value-added of teachers in spring classrooms, and explores ...
The Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach to education that aims to improve achievement for all students by improving a school’s effectiveness at building relationships, leveraging real-time student data, and capitalizing on the strengths of each student. This report provides findings from the first two ...
Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has been declining since 2010 and the teacher workforce is aging; meanwhile, K-12 enrollment is growing. But, AIR's Alex Berg-Jacobson, Jesse Levin, and Jim Lindsay argue in this blog post that those commonly quoted statistics about teacher supply and demand don't tell the whole story. ...
Teacher shortages are making headlines. In this blog post, AIR senior researcher Ellen Sherratt asks, Do we really know why fewer college students are interested in becoming educators?
Recognizing that human capital is the most important asset to teaching and learning, states and districts are rethinking their approaches to evaluating teachers’ performance. This white paper is intended to assist states and districts in strategically combining measures into a summative score in a way that reflects their goals and ...
The initiatives to enhance adult learning program accountability and assessment systems of the following states are described in this paper: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, Washington, West Virginia.
In 2012–13, Newark Public Schools ratified a new teacher contract, the main goal of which is to implement a high-quality measure of teaching effectiveness and use it to support and manage teachers in ways that improve student outcomes. An evaluation of the contract and associated initiatives found that teachers and ...