Federal and state funding for infrastructure, workforce and economic development, and apprenticeship expansion are flowing into states and regional and local entities. Here we describe two of the primary challenges that come with this new funding and promising approaches to address them.
Both the House and Senate revisions of the Elementary and Secondary School Act are moving toward giving states far more responsibility for setting student achievement standards than did the last ESEA reauthorization—the 2001 No Child Left Behind. As Congress wrestles with a final version of the bill, it would do ...
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. ...
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 ...
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 ...
First-generation immigrants perform better in reading and math tests than their second-generation peers, who in turn outperform their third-generation classmates, according to a new study by Umut Özek and Northwestern University’s David Figlio. The pair followed the performance of Asian and Hispanic students in Florida, a population that mirrors national ...
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. ...
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."
During the Bridges Toward Equity: Making Workforce Development Work for All roundtable event, a panel of AIR and community experts shared how stakeholders can work together to pursue an agenda to increase economic mobility and prosperity for the many Americans who are currently being left behind. Here are five of ...
In this first of two blogs on apprenticeships in the U.S., AIR senior researcher Marjorie Cohen discusses how the U.S. might benefit from implementing the European model of registered apprenticeships.