37% of adults in the Permian Basin, a 22-county area covering large swaths of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, are low literate. The Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin is committed to confronting this challenge by providing resources, increasing awareness, and convening partners to ensure efforts are aligned and ...
Principals influence student learning by leading efforts to improve school climate; recruiting, retaining, and supporting effective teachers; and driving organizational change. Too often, however, states and districts focus on teachers rather than principals when planning for professional supports. This brief offers an easy to digest overview of current school leadership ...
In an era when advanced technology is a part of daily life, schools are tasked with preparing students to live in an increasingly computational world. The number of employment opportunities in technology occupations is growing steadily, and there are more jobs available than qualified applicants to fill those positions. This ...
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.
In an era of increasingly rigorous state standards, teachers at all grade levels face heightened expectations to deepen their students’ understanding of mathematical concepts. This report examines the impact of content-intensive professional development on teachers’ math content knowledge, their instructional practice, and their students’ achievement. ...
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 ...
Mounting evidence shows that social and emotional learning skills may be more predictive than test scores of student success in English language arts and math. In this blog post, Deborah Moroney and Michael McGarrah discuss how states and districts can build systems to support and properly assess these social and ...
Dr. Gary Phillips, a vice president and chief scientist at AIR, was selected by the U.S. Department of Education to participate in a Race to the Top "input meeting" designed to assist states in developing the next generation of student assessment tests.
School improvement policy for the past few decades has been characterized by mandated lists of activities designed to stimulate a dramatic turnaround in student achievement. In the long run, this policy approach did not engender the necessary school-level changes. This brief demonstrates why new policies must aim to get the ...
The Common Core State Standards represent an exciting step forward for California and for the nation as a whole in supporting strong instruction that can better prepare students for college and career success. As educators embrace the challenges associated with assessment of the Common Core, it is instructive to learn ...