Creating an alternative compensation system requires a significant investment of states’ and local education agencies’ financial and human resources. This report explores the importance of program integration and financial sustainability, and provide examples of how states and LEAs are addressing sustainability challenges and concludes with recommendations to ensure that systems ...
States have prioritized documenting and improving the quality of early childhood education programs by developing quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs). This report describes the quality improvement efforts of early childhood education programs participating in Iowa’s voluntary quality rating and improvement system, the Iowa Quality Rating System (QRS). The findings ...
Over the past decade, a number of reform efforts have aimed at reducing the size of the learning communities in the nation’s schools. This paper describes the framework underlying our evaluation design of a large-scale, multifaceted school reform initiative and identifies some of the methodological challenges inherent in work of ...
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.
Which practices foster college readiness for students, particularly English learners? This study interviewed students, teachers and administrators to determine what college readiness means to staff and how teachers help prepare students.
While debates about cross-border migration remain a contentious topic of debate in developed countries, there is growing concern about increasing rates of internal migration driven by climate change. This study examines the effects of internal migration driven by severe natural disasters on students in host communities, and the mechanisms behind ...
This study investigates how mathematics motivation (mathematics identity, mathematics self-efficacy, and mathematics interest) at grade 9 and 11 related to grade 12 NAEP mathematics performance using nationally representative data. The overall SEM models reveal that mathematics motivation in grade 11 was statistically significantly associated with grade 12 NAEP mathematics ...
California is home to more than one million three- and four-year-old children, but is ranked among the 15 states producing the worst outcomes for youth. This brief presents an analysis of the unmet need for preschool services in California at the state and local levels and concludes with a more ...
As higher education policymakers and advocates consider new federal measures of student persistence and completion, how do these measures “stack up” when data from actual institutions—particularly those that serve “post-traditional” students—are used to calculate them? This technical report uses data from 11 institutions to demonstrate the importance of including all ...
Choosing an effective school principal is one of the most significant decisions that a superintendent or school board can make, as new leadership can propel a district forward in meeting its goals. In this issue brief, AIR staff review the research and summarize the challenges facing school superintendents and hiring ...