Revised Head Start Rules were approved and released in September 2016, including four major changes: increased duration, expanded access, special supports for vulnerable populations, and improved supports for teachers. In this blog post, Eboni Howard offers a run-down on the evidence-base for these new rules. ...
U.S. colleges and universities are increasingly hiring contingent faculty, or full- and part-time faculty who work on contract. While institutions say doing so saves money, two studies by the Delta Cost Project at AIR find the strategy has not translated into a large overall savings. In this blog post, Deanna ...
Failing high school algebra can have serious consequences, and students are increasingly turning to online courses to recover algebra credits. What happens when students try to make up algebra credits virtually instead of in a classroom setting? In this blog post, Kirk Walters shares new findings from a study comparing ...
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 health care so patients and their ...
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 ...
In a rare occurrence, PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP assessments are releasing science and math results in the same year. Chances are the results from the various assessments won’t all tell the same story. So what do you need to know to make sense of this bumper crop of assessments? In ...
AIR recently analyzed 45 teacher evaluation rubrics to see if they aligned with the messages teachers are receiving about improving instruction to support students in achieving higher and deeper standards. Spoiler-alert: as many teachers likely already know—they don’t align and they are often too generic to provide useful guidance for ...
Eighty-four percent of foster kids say they want to attend college, but only 20 percent will enroll and, at most, 6 percent will earn a bachelor’s degree. What can be done to help foster youths achieve their educational aspirations? In this blog post, Patricia Campie provides an overview of the ...
The U.S. Department of Education’s new regulations for teacher preparation programs ask states and organizations that prepare teachers to provide much more data about graduates’ competence, their persistence in the teacher workforce, and their impact on student learning. But is this the right data needed to improve teaching? In this ...
Imagine a STEM education for all students, regardless of neighborhood, race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status or disability, in preschool through high school and beyond—lifelong learning. Imagine high schools housed inside national tech companies; imagine games, simulations, and cognitive tutoring systems; and students learning through activities that invite play, risk, and ...
