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 ...
NAEP results are Rorschach Tests for policy wonks—a golden chance for free-association policy speculation. Small fluctuations in average scores on NAEP give rise to big explanations. Forget the quibbling over tiny differences in test scores; it’s time to rebuild schools on evidence-based, comprehensive policies that have been shown to work ...
Access to in-prison education and work experience are associated with a reduction in the likelihood of recidivism and provide inmates with a critical element on the path to reshape their personal identities. Could offering prisoners more education and work experience inside prison be a key solution to mass incarceration in ...
According to new AIR analysis of an international survey, a surprisingly large number of adults in the United States cannot apply reading or math skills to solve simple real life problems. In this blog post, Dan Sherman discusses the PIACC results he says educators, researchers, and policymakers need to explore ...
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."
NAEP's own data shows different rates among college seniors who are proficient vs. those who are ready for college. Until achievement results for 12th grade students with a good dose of Common-Core-based education under their belts become available, says Fran Stancavage in this blog post, educators who set NAEP standards ...
In this blog post, Mark Schneider discusses the disconnect between what students and faculty expect from a college education, and how to reconcile those differences.
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 ...
Education has borrowed many ideas from the medical field. Now a new initiative shows the exchange isn’t just a one-way street. Bookmarking, a widely-used method for establishing student proficiency levels in major education tests—such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress—is being adapted to healthcare so patients and their families ...
The old either/or model of college-prep or vocational education is out of sync with the needs of 21st-century America. Career pathways offer a way out of this bind. They help high school students gain secondary and postsecondary education, training, and support services while they acquire marketable skills, industry-recognized credentials, and ...