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 ...
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. ...
Zero tolerance policies were born out of fear and even desperation. After the 1999 school shootings in Colorado, some educators and public figures adopted a tough law-and-order stance; but, instead of deterrence, we got a discipline regime of mass suspensions. In this blog post, AIR's Peter Cookson argues that zero ...
The 2008-09 recession struck hard at college and university finances. In this blog post, AIR's Steven Hurlburt explains that, while colleges and universities continue to show signs of fiscal recovery in 2013, some worrying shifts remain, particularly for public higher education.
As Purdue University and other schools prepare to offer income share agreements (ISAs) to students, these new programs could put students in a sticky situation. AIR researcher Audrey Peek explains that if they don’t understand the tradeoffs of loans versus ISAs, students could end up replacing their federal loans with ...
Charter schools were created to give parents more options for their children. With greater freedom to innovate than traditional public school classrooms, some charter schools may hold particular promise for students with disabilities, who by law are entitled to receive an education tailor-made to their needs. Zena Rudo tells the ...
In this blog post, AIR Managing Director Tracy Gray explains how the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP16) shows how far schools and out-of-school programs have come and offers resources and recommendations to encourage educators to reimagine how technology can enhance learning.
A December 2015 AIR study finds that Transitional Kindergarten, the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for young five-year-olds in California, appears to improve children’s school readiness in critical areas of academic learning and development. Researchers Karen Manship and Heather Quick explain how and suggest next steps. ...
The federal regulations on teacher preparation, scheduled to be released next month, ask for a lot of new data about how well graduates perform in schools. But for students in those schools that might be too late. What's missing is a measure that can signal weakness or problems before candidates ...
What does the classroom of the future look like? In this blog post, Gretchen Weber explores educator roles that go beyond teacher and principal, arguing that new roles that emphasize leadership skills and precise expertise can motivate current and future teachers to stay in the profession and help them thrive ...
