AIR, as a partner in the California Comprehensive Center at WestEd, worked with the K-12 Innovation and Improvement Office (formerly the Middle Grades Improvement Office) at the California Department of Education to conduct a study on student transitions from the middle grades to high school.
How can classroom teachers maximize the learning potential of their adult basic education (ABE) students while, at the same time, attending to differences among them? Instead of expecting learners to adjust to the lessons they plan, teachers need to plan their lessons to adjust to the learners at hand. - ...
In the 40+ years since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted, the law has changed the landscape for students with disabilities. This report is the result of a working meeting of special education experts and stakeholders held to consider the challenges and opportunities for strengthening special education ...
Over the past decade, the Michigan Department of Education has sought to implement a support system to break the cycle of low performance in the state’s schools. This study documents the progress of six schools that made significant progress within five years. Three common themes emerged: a focus on school ...
The process through which a school adopts a comprehensive school reform (CSR) model has been suggested to be a key element in the lifecycle of school reform, contributing to stakeholder buy-in and subsequent implementation. In this paper, we study the model adoption process, both on a national scale with survey ...
Many states are attempting to identify schools that perform better than schools with similar populations. Such “beating-the-odds” schools offer opportunities to identify promising practices that can be implemented by other ...
Comprehensive school reform (CSR) is only as effective as its implementation. By using data collected for the National Longitudinal Evaluation of Comprehensive School Reform, this study explores how CSR model implementation varies as well as what factors predict CSR model implementation.
The initiatives to enhance adult learning program accountability and assessment systems of the following states are described in this paper: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, Washington, West Virginia.
Using data from a large-scale program evaluation of comprehensive school reform (CSR), the authors of this report examine the role of social capital in the context of CSR.
Public pension systems in many U.S. states face large funding shortfalls. Movement toward defined contribution (DC) pension structures may reduce the likelihood of future shortfalls. We address some limitations of the existing literature by studying public-sector employees who are enrolled in either a defined benefit (DB) plan or hybrid DB-DC ...