At the request of the Nellie Mae Foundation (NMEF), AISR staff examined the growing body of literature on community organizing to understand how this strategy fits into systemic education reform. The research shows that community organizing for school reform has the potential to create equitable changes in schools and districts, develop innovative education solutions that reflect the knowledge of under-served communities, and build the long-term social capital of under-served communities...
Recent Publications
The New York Senate recently authorized the City University of New York to create and operate a Parent Training Center for public school parents that will teach them to more effectively participate in school governance and support students’ educational success — reflecting a growing nationwide interest in parent leadership training. In this report, Anne Henderson, senior consultant for community organizing and engagement work at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, describes four...
Over the last decade, the New York City public school system has sought to reform high school education by closing or downsizing large, failing high schools and opening new small high schools in their stead. This report explores whether these reforms altered the distribution of student characteristics across schools by comparing the demographic characteristics of students entering the new small high schools with those of students entering the large high schools that closed and with high...
Allocating budgets to schools based on students instead of staff can create a more equitable and rational allocation of funds among schools with differing needs. VUE 29 Online
Value-added models have become increasingly popular in today’s policy environment as a way to evaluate, reward, and dismiss teachers. These statistical models aim to isolate each teacher’s unique contribution to their students’ educational outcomes based in part on student test scores. But NYU professor Sean Corcoran uses data analysis to argue that value-added models are not precise enough to be useful for high-stakes decision making or professional development. Corcoran cautions...