The beginning of a new presidential term in 2013 provides an opportunity to reflect on what’s working and what needs improvement in education reform policies. The year 2013 also marks AISR’s twentieth anniversary of research and capacity building in support of equity and excellence in urban public education. Informed by those two decades of work, this issue of VUE – featuring, for the first time, AISR authors for all the articles and...
Recent Publications
AISR had a unique opportunity to observe, facilitate, and document the early stages of a comprehensive and successful districtwide reform effort in Knoxville, Tennessee, through AISR's Central Office Review for Results and Equity, or CORRE in 2008, and then follow up four years later. The Central Office Review for Results and Equity...
Making sure that students graduate high school prepared for college and work has acquired increasing urgency in education reform today. But how do we know when a student is “college ready?" And, most importantly, how do we use that information to design effective supports and interventions? In this issue of VUE, researchers from AISR and the John W. Gardner Center (JGC), district and school administrators, and a college president...
The portfolio district model adopted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City is often held up as a national model for high school "choice," touted as the best way to reduce pernicious race- and income-based achievement gaps. According to this model, student demographics are “no excuse” for poor performance: teacher quality is the single most important determinant of student success. But this AISR study on college readiness shows that in spite of...
In the summer 2012 issue of VUE, developed in partnership with the Education for Liberation Network, participants from the 2011 Free Minds Free People Conference write about the liberatory potential of education. Through myriad lenses, these teachers, students, activists, and scholars focus on the crucial ways that education forms the most basic foundation of a democratic, equitable society and what it means to engage in education for liberation.
>...
Education leaders have increasingly recognized that students must leave high school ready for college and career. But in the past, once students have left high school, little feedback has been available on how they did in college: how do we know when they are college ready? In this AISR publication, New York City Department of Education researchers describe a data collaboration with the City University of New York aimed at identifying the student characteristics and trajectories...
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...
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...