As students across the country return to school, those responsible for their care and education are finalizing their plans to ensure a productive year. AIR’s evidence-based resources for back to school support educators through three essential lenses: school climate, safety, and social and emotional learning (SEL); college and career readiness; ...
This spotlight takes a look at the history of Title I, how the program has changed over time, and how it affects children, schools, families and education policy. Experts weigh in on the program's past and future in interviews, briefs, and blogs.
Implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) presented policymakers and stakeholders with opportunities to improve outcomes for schools and students as well as teachers and leaders. AIR worked with districts and states to help them navigate the most current information, key topics, and research-based resources for planning and implementing ESSA ...
Turning around our nation’s low-performing schools became a national priority—and central focus of education policy at all levels—in 2001 with No Child Left Behind. Then Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants redoubled the nation’s emphasis on school turnaround, giving states more resources to advance improvement efforts within federal ...
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states the authority and flexibility to turn around their lowest performing schools. In this blog post, Allison Gandhi asks if states can succeed where federal policy requirements have run into walls, using the success of the Massachusetts Wraparound Zone initiative as an example. ...
With Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcement of the Excellent Educators for All initiative earlier this month, putting excellent principals at the helm of high-need schools remains critical. To better prepare the new principals, Aaron Butler contends in this blog post, state- and district-level leaders should make leadership development and coaching ...
The Minnesota Department of Education administers about 65 surveys a year. These surveys help gauge needs, gather feedback, inform programs and policy, and fulfill legislative requirements. The Midwest Comprehensive Center partnered with the department in 2015 and 2016 to build the agency’s capacity in survey methodology, enhance overall survey quality, ...
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 ...
In this blog post, published as part of the work of the Midwest Comprehensive Center, Chris Times and Fausto López describe how educators and students in Chicago are proving that diligence and data-informed decision making can lead to positive changes.
Many schools hoping to infuse practices with research have encountered challenges, and Battle Creek Public Schools’ experience implementing literary instruction grounded in research is no different. These challenges can serve as lessons for other education leaders, as AIR expert Kerstin Le Floch describes in this In the Field piece. ...