AIR’s state and local evaluation projects marshal a broad range of expertise and resources to support state education agencies and district offices as they decide whether to retain, revise, or end a policy or program. The projects address challenges in district and school reform, educator quality, special education, school financing, ...
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 ...
This spotlight takes a look at the history of Title I, how the program has changed over time, and how it affects children, schools, families and education policy. Experts weigh in on the program's past and future in interviews, briefs, and blogs.
Principal observation tools are used to accurately evaluate principal performance by helping principal supervisors and coaches improve instructional leadership. This piece describes how using the right tools is helping principals in the U.S. Virgin Islands develop such evidence-based coaching and performance evaluations. ...
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.
Building on existing external school support literature, this brief offers a set of indicators for assessing the quality of support provided to low-performing schools, with respect to the No Child Left Behind Act.
The Minnesota Department of Education administers about 65 surveys a year. These surveys help gauge needs, gather feedback, inform programs and policy, and fulfill legislative requirements. The Midwest Comprehensive Center partnered with the department in 2015 and 2016 to build the agency’s capacity in survey methodology, enhance overall survey quality, ...
The achievement gap, which refers to the disparity in academic performance between groups of students, is a pressing issue facing K-12 education. AIR is supporting states to close academic achievement gaps through strategies including alternative school discipline policies, GIS mapping, improved early childhood education, and culturally responsive instruction. In this ...
Over the last decade, educators have become increasingly interested in continuous improvement (CI) as a strategy for reform. For this literature review, AIR set out to locate empirical studies that described the process of implementing CI, as well as studies that analyzed the conditions that foster or limit its use. ...
The Center for ELLs at AIR works with states, districts, and schools to collect information about current policies and practices for ELLs, evaluate those policies and practices, and formulate plans of action to make improvements in the education of ELLs.