An AIR report finds that Pennsylvania’s system for financing public schools severely underfunds many of the state’s highest need urban and rural public school districts. The report found that the average levels of both school spending and student achievement in Pennsylvania are above the national average, but fail to meet ...
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 ...
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."
How can we better support young people as they learn the skills they need to succeed in school, work, and life? These resources focus on social and emotional development outside the classroom.
AIR’s Standards for the Economic Evaluation of Educational and Social Programs aim to help decisionmakers optimize the use of limited resources to improve outcomes. AIR experts discuss why the standards were developed, how they can be used, and what makes them particularly relevant now.
Governors are called upon to lead and improve their states' education systems, addressing a number of diverse and changing issues. In this open letter, AIR's Angela Minnici, director of the Education Policy Center and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, sets out seven action steps for 2015 to help ...
In this brief, AIR researchers offer a potential pathway to understanding how learning and development happen in quality afterschool and summer programs. This pathway emphasizes three key competencies—relationship skills, a sense of agency, and identity development—that research suggests can facilitate learning and development in other areas. ...
Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow is a managing researcher at AIR. She is an expert in postsecondary and adult education reform and has led many large-scale, mixed-methods evaluations of community college and adult education reforms. She is dedicated to using qualitative and quantitative research to improve equity and the prosperity and well-being of ...
Matthew Vinson is a senior researcher working on out-of-school time (OST) initiatives with at AIR. Vinson is the project lead for OST evaluation efforts in New Jersey and Ohio, as well as analysis support for OST evaluations in Texas, Oregon, and Washington. He is the outcomes evaluation lead for the ...
For educators and employers, understanding the knowledge, attitudes, and skills that ultimately contribute to success in school, work, and life is a priority. Over the past decade, afterschool programs have focused on preparing young people for the workforce by developing good work habits and a strong work ethic; this brief ...