Teacher and principal evaluation systems now emerging in response to federal, state, and/or local policy initiatives typically require that a component of teacher evaluation be based on multiple performance metrics, which must be combined to produce summative ratings of teacher effectiveness. This paper investigates whether the bias and error introduced ...
Young adults in the United States today face the challenges of achieving financial and social independence—while forming their own households—at a time of economic uncertainty. The Special Issue on America's Young Adults offers policymakers and the public a better understanding of these young adults in order to support them more ...
Teach For America (TFA), the alternative certification program that places intensively selected recent college graduates and midcareer professionals into classrooms serving high-need students, requires a two-year commitment from the corps members it places in regions across the country. This report examines low retention, a major point of criticism directed at ...
U.S. businesses are facing challenges filling so-called “middle-skills” jobs in trades, telecommunications, health care, IT, and similar professions. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is an existing and promising pathway that can address this gap.
Colleges and universities are relying heavily on contingent faculty to increase flexibility and reduce costs, yet little is known about whether such savings actually result in lower overall costs or if the money saved on instruction is being spent in other areas. This brief documents the financial trade-offs being made ...
Teachers are the number-one factor in student learning, so preparing and supporting high-quality teachers of computer science is critical. AIR is working with states, districts, and teachers to implement and test three promising strategies to strengthen teacher preparation and development:
In a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that spanned more than a decade, AIR found that attending a high school with an explicit focus on deeper learning resulted in positive short-term outcomes, but few longer-term outcomes. In this Q&A, AIR Principal Researcher Kristina Zeiser and Senior Researcher Catherine Bitter share insights about ...
Contingent faculty—that is, full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track—now comprise the majority of all faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. The first of a two-part series, the goal of this brief is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the landscape surrounding changes to the academic workforce, ...
This CALDER Center paper examines the value of strategically assigning disproportionately larger classes to the strongest teachers in order to optimize student learning in the face of differential teacher effectiveness. The rationale is straightforward: Larger classes for the best teachers benefit the pupils who are reassigned to them; they also ...
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."