School principals are second only to classroom teachers as the most influential school factor in student achievement. For the lowest-performing schools, strong leadership—including setting and maintaining direction—plays a key role in turning around schools' performance and improving student outcomes. Assessing the performance of principals is essential given the position's critical ...
Countries such as Bangladesh and Mozambique have made universal access to pre-primary education a priority in recent years. Other countries hoping to improve their pre-primary education programs can learn from the experiences of Bangladesh and Mozambique; specifically, some of the necessary conditions to make pre-primary education programs effective. ...
The goal of the project, which is entitled Strategic School Funding for Results (SSFR), is to develop and implement more equitable and transparent strategies for allocating resources to schools within each district and to link those strategies to systems designed to encourage innovation and efficiency, and strengthen accountability for student ...
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.
Catherine Barbour is a credentialed School Turnaround Leader with a certificate from Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education. She successfully turned around three low-performing schools as a principal in urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Ashu Handa is an economist whose work centers on global poverty, health, and human development in sub-Saharan Africa. At AIR, he works to expand Equity Initiative work internationally and supports AIR’s global poverty research and policy efforts. He has been a professor at the University of North Carolina for 20 ...
While we believe wholly in numbers and facts, they don't tell the full, human story. Karen Francis, AIR Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, offers a stirring personal account of a recent trip visiting AIR-supported projects in Tanzania and Zambia.
Very little is known about what resources are required to operate high-quality Out-of-School Time (OST) programs. The purpose of this study is to develop timely and relevant estimates of OST program costs and the funding necessary to support high-quality OST programs. AIR will use state-of-the-field methods for determining education program ...
Between 2007 and 2013, UNICEF commissioned 133 evaluations of UNICEF-supported basic education interventions. AIR conducted a synthesis review to determine their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and sustainability, and advised UNICEF on how, when, and for what to invest limited resources in rigorous evaluations of the impact of basic education interventions. ...
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 ...