This series of seven profiles summarizes some of the key policy and implementation challenges that have been confronted and addressed by district superintendents, teachers, school leaders, and others working to transform struggling schools across the nation. The profiles are designed to provide community-based groups, educators, and other advocates with examples of alternatives to school closings and to inform discussions in their own...
Recent Publications
In this report prepared by AISR, the New York City Working Group on School Transformation calls on the city’s Department of Education to support low-performing schools, rather than simply closing them. The Working Group, initiated by the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice and coordinated by AISR, grew out of a 2011 conference that presented successful alternatives to school closings.
The national education spotlight has shifted from high school graduation to postsecondary success, leading to a proliferation of new college readiness policies and initiatives – many involving multiple actors from diverse sectors. This publication scans the burgeoning field of college readiness and provides models to help districts, schools, and other interested stakeholders prepare their students for college success.
This issue of VUE, developed in partnership with Brown University’s Graduate School of Education/Urban Education Policy (UEP) Program, illuminates some of the initial outcomes of the UEP program from the perspective of recent graduates. Launched in 2006 and designed to prepare the next generation of urban education policy leaders, the UEP program has spawned five cohorts of...
The "achievement gap" — the ongoing racial inequality in public school education — has proven stubbornly persistent. Schools have employed a variety of measures in an attempt to reduce this academic divide; the emergence of education organizing as a school reform tactic offers a promising alternative, outlined in AISR's Center for Education Organizing publication...
Teaching quality is one of the most intensely discussed and debated themes in education reform today. This guide, prepared by AISR with support from the Schott Foundation for Public Education, offers six game-changing strategies that both our own experience and our survey of the field have shown to be powerful supports for the quality of instruction. For each strategy, we outline the problem; what needs to happen; an example of best...
Since Spring 2009, AISR has partnered with Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) in support of the ambitious reform agenda, entitled "MNPS Achieves," launched under the leadership of Director of Schools Dr. Jesse B. Register. An AISR research team conducted its first evaluation of the system-wide transformation through July 2010; its second report, covering August 2010 - May 2011, was issued...
The role of seniority in teacher layoffs is a perennial subject of intense debate, with different states taking sharply differing approaches: some have ended layoff policies based only on seniority, while others prohibit districts from considering any factor other than seniority. This policy brief from the Annenberg Institute's Center for Education Organizing (CEO) examines the history and intent of seniority rules and...
With rising standards and expectations, greater student need, and ever-more-intense financial pressures, what will it take for communities to help schools meet these new challenges? This issue of VUE was produced collaboratively by AISR and Public Education Network and grew from the work of the National Commission on Civic Investment in Public Education, convened by PEN in 2009 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Prudential Corporation. Much of the...
In January 2010, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) identified Central Falls High School (CFHS) as one of the state’s persistently lowest-achieving schools, which required the district to choose one of four turnaround models. The subsequent conflict and negotiation between the district and the union, which made national news, ultimately led to the adoption of the "transformation" model. The district hired...