When teachers learn, students learn. For decades, AIR has conducted studies of teacher professional learning and helped practitioners use evidence to develop, implement, test, and scale professional learning programs.
Emerging research suggests some promising features of educator performance evaluation measures, such as additional observations of the same teacher and providing more frequent, specific feedback on classroom practice. This report, which discusses first year results of an evaluation of three performance measures for evaluating teachers and principals, found that the ...
State implementation of new standards (revising, adapting, and adopting new standards) is a significant undertaking. Many states are just beginning to consider whether to modify existing science standards, adapt standards being used in other states, or develop new ones. This document is intended to guide state boards of education through ...
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). Paving the way for people with disabilities to receive a high-quality education and be prepared to enter the workforce not only benefits people with disabilities directly, but also benefits their families, businesses, and communities. ...
State teacher evaluation policies have undergone sweeping changes since 2008, spurred forward heavily by federal competitive funding opportunities like Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation. All 49 states and the District of Columbia have changed legislation or regulations to improve the consistency and quality of teacher evaluation. After ...
This report delivers an overview of the site visit component of the TTT evaluation. Specifically, it describes the process that was used to select the eight sites and provides a snapshot of each; discusses major themes that emerged from the data and relates them to the literature on alternative certification ...
Not all student growth measures are alike, nor are they designed to be. But when student growth measures are used for educator evaluation, fairness and comparability become critical. This paper focuses on the benefits and challenges of student learning objectives (SLOs) and their use in educator effectiveness systems. To support ...
The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt “value-added” models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. This study examines how teacher evaluations are affected by incorrectly attributing changes in student's test scores to the value-added of teachers in spring classrooms, and explores ...
To assess teacher effectiveness in accordance with state and federal policies—such as the Race to the Top program—many states and districts are using growth and value-added models as one component of a comprehensive teacher evaluation system.
Recognizing that human capital is the most important asset to teaching and learning, states and districts are rethinking their approaches to evaluating teachers’ performance. This white paper is intended to assist states and districts in strategically combining measures into a summative score in a way that reflects their goals and ...