airnews - american institutes for researchmosaica education of atlanta, ga.; national heritage...

Chronically failing public schools are starting to feel the

pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act. Hundreds and

possibly thousands of schools that fail to meet the law’s

standards for a fifth year in a row will be forced to

restructure. Can anyone do a better job of running these

low-performing schools?

Even before Congress and the White House created the

federal standards, some districts brought in outside firms to

take over failing schools. At least 500 schools have been

No Child Left Behind Act.........1

Education Service Providers ....1

Helping India...........................1

AIR Celebrates Six Decades ....5

Achievement Tests for Hawaii..6

U.S. Math Skills........................7

Health Literacy Survey ............8

Medicare & You .......................9

Health Care Delivery ...............9

Reducing Medical Errors.......10

Medicare Book.......................11

Sol Pelavin Speech ...............12

David Myers Joins AIR...........12

Southern Africa .....................13

Education in Pakistan ...........14

Phil Davies Joins AIR .............14

California’s Prop. 227............15

Fellows Program...................16

American Institutes for Research

newsAIRMaking Research Relevant

In the hilly jungles of western India, in the remote state

of Jharkhand, the staff at the Center for Women’s

Development, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) run

by Catholic nuns, works tirelessly to serve the marginalized

hill tribes of the area. An average day for members of the

center includes navigating rivers, traversing washed out

roads, and working in communities without electricity or

running water. Dangers posed by Maoist rebels or wild

elephants do not deter the Sisters from their mission of

opening and maintaining balwadis (kindergartens).

WINTER | 2007 | N0. 23

In 2007 Congress will re-examine the No Child Left Behind

Act (NCLB), enacted to raise educational standards in the

nation’s public schools. AIR is playing a pivotal role in two

studies that are part of the congressionally mandated

National Assessment of Title I — the National Longitudinal

Study of NCLB (NLS-NCLB) and a Study of State

Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality

under NCLB (SSI-NCLB).

The looming congressional debate on the reauthorization

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is likely to

reflect some of the findings of the twin studies, as

lawmakers decide what to keep from the original law and

what needs to be retooled for the years ahead.

States have worked hard to implement NCLB’s tough

accountability measures, which require them to test

Continued on page 4Continued on page 3

Helping India EducateChildren in Need

AIR Plays Pivotal Role in Two Studies of No ChildLeft Behind Act

“Jury Still Out” on ManyEducation ServiceProviders

Continued on page 2


2

students yearly in grades 3 to 8 in major subjects and at

least once in high school and forbid them from excluding

disabled students or those with limited English language

skills from statewide testing. The long range goal is to

transform the entire U.S. public school system — all 92,000

schools with 48.5 million students — so that by 2014 every

child achieves proficiency in reading and mathematics.

AIR is playing an important role in both four-year

evaluations. The NLS-NCLB is examining the law’s

implementation at the district and school levels, with

particular emphasis on accountability, teacher quality,

parental choice options, and allocation of resources. AIR

is working with the RAND Corporation and the National

Opinion Research Center on this study, which includes a

nationwide survey this fall of more than 16,000 district

administrators, principals, teachers, paraprofessionals and

parents in 300 districts and 1,500 schools. The data will

be combined with the results from an earlier survey

conducted during the 2004-05 year.

The second study focuses on state implementation, where

AIR is working with two subcontractors, the Council of

Chief State School Officers and REDA International. The

SSI-NCLB team conducts interviews with officials from all

50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico on how

the states have defined adequate yearly progress (AYP),

which schools need improvement, and what supports and

sanctions they have created for schools that repeatedly fail

to meet the mark. As part of this study, AIR builds and

maintains the National AYP and Identification (NAYPI)

database, which is currently the only comprehensive

national source of data on which schools made or missed

AYP targets, which overall and subgroup targets they

missed, and whether schools and districts are identified for

improvement. This study also looks at what states are

doing to help teachers become “highly qualified” under

NCLB and paraprofessionals to be “qualified.” Finally, this

study addresses the new NCLB provisions for helping

students who are not yet proficient in English.

The strong response rate to the 2004-05 surveys is an

indication of their importance: All 50 states participated;

96 percent of school districts; 89 percent of principals; 84

percent of teachers; 85 percent of special education

teachers; 87 percent of paraprofessionals and 60 percent

of parents.

Based on initial findings, about 11,500 schools, or 13

percent, were identified for improvement in 2004-05,

while about 9,000 Title I schools, 18 percent, fell into that

category. Most of the schools identified for improvement

are large urban schools with a high number of minority

students from low income families.

The results from both of these four-year evaluations will

be made available to lawmakers considering possible

changes to NCLB. “These studies will help Congress filter

out the background noise and review detailed findings

about what’s working with No Child Left Behind and what

changes may need to be considered,” said Kerstin Carlson

Le Floch, AIR’s project director.

AIR Plays Pivotal Role in Two Studies of No Child Left Behind ActContinued from page 1


3

turned over to new management,

usually as public charter schools. Are

these outside education service

providers up to the task?

AIR’s Comprehensive School Reform

Quality (CSRQ) Center sifted through

hundreds of research reports and found

there is limited scientific evidence

about the effectiveness of companies

that operate hundreds of charter

schools across the nation. Edison

Schools, which operates 157 schools,

was the only one of seven outside

education firms for which the review

found evidence of a positive effect on

student achievement.

“The jury is still out on the effectiveness

of many of these models,” said Steve

Fleischman, an AIR vice president who

supervised the review. With the

increased accountability imposed by No

Child Left Behind, he added, “All

programs claiming to improve student

achievement, including education

service providers, will be increasingly

challenged to demonstrate effectiveness

based on rigorous studies.”

Four providers – The Leona Group of

Phoenix, Ariz., and East Lansing, Mich.;

Mosaica Education of Atlanta, Ga.;

National Heritage Academies of Grand

Rapids, Mich.; and White Hat

Management of Akron, Ohio – got zero

ratings because none of the studies of their methods was

considered rigorous enough.

Two other providers — Imagine Schools of Arlington, Va.,

and SABIS Educational Systems of Eden Prairie, Minn. —

received no rating because there was no publicly

available evidence on which to assess them. Imagine,

Mosaica and White Hat provided no information about

their schools to the CSRQ Center, and SABIS had limited

contact with the Center.

When the study began, all seven organizations were run

for profit, but Imagine subsequently switched to

nonprofit status.

On the question of student achievement, the only nine

studies considered scientifically rigorous all dealt with

Edison Schools. These found a mix of positive and

negative effects, but overall showed that Edison had a

“moderate” impact on raising student achievement. At an

AIR symposium, John E. Chubb, Edison’s chief education

officer, said the results “will be very useful in the hands of

informed policymakers.” Other participants included

Michael Petrilli, a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham

Foundation; and Nancy Van Meter, director of the

American Federation of Teacher’s Center on Privatization.

The report is one of three major consumer guides

published by AIR’s CSRQ Center. In October 2006 it

released a review of the effectiveness and quality of 18

widely adopted middle and high school reform models.

The Center also rated 22 comprehensive school reform

models. The Center provides tools and technical

assistance to help educators and decision-makers

identify and apply what works in making schools better.

It is funded through a Comprehensive School Reform

Quality Initiative grant from the federal Office of

Elementary and Secondary Education.

AIR Finds “Jury Still Out” on Many EducationService Providers

Continued from page 1

Michael Petrilli, Vice President,Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Nancy Van Meter, Director,American Federation of Teacher’sCenter on Privatization

John E. Chubb, Chief Education Officer, Edison School


4

AIR, under the REACH India project (Reaching and

Educating At-risk Children), is implementing an NGO

capacity building project funded by the U.S. Agency for

International Development (USAID). Because of those

efforts, the Sisters at the center in Jharkhand have been

able to expand the reach and scope of their existing 35

balwadis and start 20 additional new ones that reach

more than 1,800 children.

The Center for Women’s Development initially sought to

help the needy by empowering women, but quickly evolved

into a community empowerment NGO and developed a

strategy of introducing balwadis into villages to help

educate children under the age of eight. With the support

of the villagers, the children are now attending school

instead of participating in various forms of child labor.

AIR is working to build the capacity of 100 NGOs

throughout India. Through workshops and training

sessions on topics ranging from classroom environment to

financial management to curriculum development,

REACH India works to improve the way in which these

organizations operate to help them better address the

basic education needs of the children they serve.

The Center for Women’s Development uses interactive

learning methodologies – such as song, dance and

dramatizations – in the curriculum to engage the

youngsters as a way to entice children to regularly attend

class. Upon completion of the 1-3 year program, the

children have the opportunity to attend a local primary

school. Although there was some initial reluctance

amongst the villagers, community mobilization efforts

have helped develop the habit of going to school in the

children and their parents. Parents are now inclined to

send their children to primary school and become

engaged in their education. Female members of the local

Village Education Committee act as substitute teachers,

teaching assistants, and cooks and distribute food

provided by a school feeding program.

To fully comprehend the center’s accomplishments, one

only needs to look at the smiling faces of the children.

Continued from page 1

Helping India Educate Children in Need


5

AIR is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its founding, a

period of dynamic growth in the organization’s size and

capabilities as it strives to achieve one mission: To

conduct and apply behavioral and social science research

to improve people’s lives.

In founding AIR in 1946, John C. Flanagan presented a 20-

year plan focusing on “the scientific study of human

resources and their effective use” with the goal of

“developing the individual.” Six decades later, AIR has

established a record of accomplishing these goals in areas

like education, health and the workplace. The long-range

vision of Sol H. Pelavin, AIR’s current president and CEO, is

based on the same values, with a special emphasis on

helping the disadvantaged.

“Throughout AIR’s history, our overarching purpose has

been to use the results of scientific research to enhance

the quality of life,” said Pelavin. “That truly is what

motivates our staff today and will continue to guide us

throughout the decades ahead.”

AIR’s growth as an organization and the broad range of

the work it performs is a testament to the quality of its

employees and the services they provide.

Several prominent organizations have become part of AIR,

including The Campbell Collaboration (C2), an international

nonprofit group that shares AIR’s goal of helping make

well-informed decisions about the effects of research

interventions in the social, behavioral, and educational

arenas. C2 seeks to establish high-quality evidence of

“what works” in social and behavioral interventions and

public policy, including education and social welfare.

Others include: New American Schools, best known for

establishing a comprehensive approach to school reform

more than a decade ago; the Sutton Group, a social

marketing and communications firm; and The McKenzie

Group, Inc., a nationally recognized education consulting

firm specializing in urban reform.

Highlights about AIR:

• AIR began in 1946 with a handful of staff and small

revenues. By 1994, after it merged with Pelavin

Associates, there were 250 staff and revenues

climbed to $22 million. Today, AIR has more than

1,300 employees and revenue for 2006 is expected

to exceed $250 million.

AIR Celebrates Six Decades of Success

Continued on page 6


6

• AIR began with one office in Pittsburgh and opened

its second office in 1955. It now has 12 office loca-

tions throughout the United States, as well as offices

in 12 foreign countries.

• In AIR’s first project, Trans World Airlines asked AIR

to screen pilots based on their predicted perform-

ance. The selection process improved the quality of

pilots and has been applied over the years by many

airlines around the world.

• In 1957, AIR’s first major education effort was

Project TALENT, which identified ways to encourage

high school students to develop and use their poten-

tial talents. AIR measured the aptitudes and interests

of a national sample of 440,000 students and con-

ducted follow-up surveys one, five, and 11 years

after they graduated. The database became a

national resource for improving education through

vocational guidance and curriculum development.

• AIR turned its attention overseas in the 1960s by

developing aptitude tests to help Nigerians classify

students for entry into secondary, technical or alter-

native schools. AIR assisted other developing nations

with similar tests, including Liberia, Ghana, Mali,

Brazil, and South Korea.

• In the 1980s through the current decade, AIR has

been expanding into a variety of important health-

related areas. AIR developed materials to communi-

cate information about AIDS more effectively to

prospective blood donors, and has been assisting

federal officials to prepare for crisis situations, like

a bioterrorist attack or an outbreak of avian flu. AIR

also emerged as one of the leading organizations

that improved the accessibility of air travel for

people with disabilities.

AIR Celebrates Six Decades of SuccessContinued from page 5

AIR Developing AchievementTests for Hawaii Public SchoolsThe Hawaii Department of Education has selected AIR to develop and

administer the state’s standardized achievement tests in math, reading and

science.

Under the contract, AIR is responsible for developing and administering

math and reading tests in 2006 and science tests in 2007.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, in announcing the decision, said state school

officials chose AIR because “its current state clients have offered Hawaii

glowing reviews of its work” and noted that officials in Ohio and South

Carolina “report that AIR’s work has been error-free, under budget and

ahead of schedule.”


7

The results of an AIR study challenges conventional

wisdom that, when it comes to math, U.S. 4th and 8th

graders compare favorably with their peers around the

world, only to fall behind in high school. The AIR study

found that the math skills of U.S. youth consistently trail

their counterparts.

A review by the Thomas Fordham Foundation called the AIR

report “as close to a thriller” as education research gets.

And education historian Diane Ravitch of New York

University called the findings “amazing” and lauded the AIR

report as “a remarkable and enlightening contribution to

our understanding of the problems in American education.”

The 32-page study, “Reassessing U.S. International

Mathematics Performance: New Findings from the 2003

TIMSS and PISA,” was funded by the U.S. Department of

Education and led by Alan Ginsburg of the U.S.

Department of Education and AIR’s Steve Leinwand. The

AIR analysis showed conclusively that, when measured

against a common set of industrialized nations, U.S. 4th

and 8th graders were consistently near the back of the

class, not the front.

How did it happen that the conventional wisdom can be

so wrong? How can researchers look at the same data

from these international assessments and emerge with

such sharply different conclusions?

“These studies all were based on the same three

international assessments: the 2003 Trends in

International Mathematics and Science Study that tested

4th graders on mathematics, a separate TIMSS math

assessment of 8th graders, and the Program for

International Student Assessment, which tested 15 year

olds,” said Leinwand.

“The problem was that not every country took all three

tests. Two dozen took part in the TIMSS for 4th graders,

but 45 were compared on the 8th grade results, and 40

did the PISA assessment,” he said.

“We looked at the 12 countries that took all three

assessments and found the U.S. students ranked eighth in

the 4th grade and ninth in both 8th grade and at age 15,”

he said. Contrary to the popular judgment that serious

problems with U.S. math curriculum and instruction are

confined to high schools, the AIR study showed that U.S.

students lag behind in 4th grade and never catch up to

peers in other leading nations.

The other countries compared with the United States

were Australia, Belgium, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan,

Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Russia.

The AIR reanalysis also discovered some intriguing

findings about the gender gap. While all 12 countries

showed a gap between boys’ and girls’ math scores at age

15, the U.S. and Italy were the only ones where boys

outperformed girls at the 4th and 8th grade levels as well.

Leinwand also said the AIR study showed that U.S.

students were strong on data and statistics, but weak on

measurement and geometry.

The full report is available on the AIR Web site,

www.air.org.

AIR Study Challenges Conventional Wisdom on4th and 8th Grade U.S. Math Skills

AIR conducted the first national survey of the health

literacy of the nation’s adults, finding that millions of

Americans have trouble comprehending written

information involving their health. More than 77 million

adults have difficulty following printed directions on a

bottle of medicine and 30 million are stymied by

instructions about what to eat or drink before a medical

test.

AIR researchers wrote “The Health Literacy of America’s

Adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of

Adult Literacy” for the U.S. Department of Education’s

National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services. It was

released in September 2006 and is based on data

collected from 19,000 adults for the National Assessment

of Adult Literacy (NAAL). AIR was responsible for the

design, analysis and reporting for NAAL, the first national

assessment of adult literacy in the United States in more

than a decade.

Women received higher marks than men, and health

literacy scores rose with education and income, but not

with age. Young adults — ages 25 to 39 — had the highest

scores, while those 65 and older had the lowest.

“These findings offer important new insights for

policymakers, the health community, and adult literacy

service providers about the challenges that many adults

face when seeking to obtain information from doctors,

understand medicine labels, read pamphlets about

preventive health measures, or use medical insurance

forms.” said Mark Kutner, an AIR vice president and lead

author of the study. The other AIR authors were Elizabeth

Greenberg, Ying Jin and Christine Paulsen.

The study could spur drug companies and others in the

health industry to redesign labels and brochures to make

them easier to read and follow, Kutner said.

The findings were based on face-to-face interviews with

18,000 people in their homes and with 1,200 prison

inmates. The questions ranged from simple — circling the

date of a medical appointment on a hospital slip — to

complex, such as calculating an employee’s yearly share

of health insurance costs from a table showing monthly

costs by income and family size.

Forty-seven million American adults have a basic level of

health literacy, and 30 million are below basic, which

means they would have difficulty identifying substances

that may interact with over-the-counter drugs to cause

harmful side affects.

A majority of adults 16 and older — 53 percent — scored

in the intermediate range on health literacy and 12

percent were rated proficient. Some 22 percent had basic

knowledge and 14 percent scored below basic. Sixteen

percent of men and 12

percent of women

were below basic.

Nearly 3 in 10 seniors

and almost half of

those without a high

school degree scored

below basic. Only 3

percent of those with

a bachelor’s degree

scored below basic.

Those with the highest

scores reported

getting a lot of their

health information

online. Eighty percent

of the below basic

adults did not use the

Internet as a source.

77 Million Adults Unable to Understand DrugLabels, According to Nation’s First HealthLiteracy Survey


8


9“Medicare & You” HandbookPitched Over Seniors’ HeadsEach year the Centers for

Medicare & Medicaid

Services (CMS) sends out

a “Medicare & You”

handbook to all 42 million

of its beneficiaries, most

of them elderly. The 2006

handbook was especially important because it explained

what senior citizens needed to do to sign up for Medicare’s

new prescription drug benefits.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) enlisted

AIR to rate the readability of “Medicare & You” and five

other documents that CMS relied upon to explain

Medicare and the new drug benefits. The verdict: the

materials were accurate, but hard to understand and over

the heads of many in the intended audience.

Forty percent of seniors read at or below 5th grade level,

but AIR’s analysis showed that “the reading levels of the

documents ranged from 7th grade to post college,” Leslie

G. Aronovitz, the GAO’s health care director, told

Congress. Furthermore, they used too much jargon and

often did not define difficult terms, such as “formulary” —

the list of approved drugs that a plan pays for.

“Hopefully the information from this study will assist not

only CMS, but the citizens they serve as well,” said

Christine Paulsen, principal research scientist at AIR, who

directed the readability project. Paulsen is an authority

on enhancing the usability and accessibility of health

information to help consumers make informed medical

decisions.

AIR performed a readability assessment of six CMS-issued

documents, a heuristic evaluation of the materials, and a

usability assessment in which a sample of beneficiaries

and caregivers were studied to determine their ability to

use and comprehend selected information.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

has selected an alliance of organizations led by AIR for a

contract to promote innovation in health care delivery in

the United States. AHRQ is a Public Health Service agency

in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The AIR group is one of 15 partnerships chosen to

participate in the Accelerating Change and

Transformation in Organizations and Networks (ACTION)

program, which is aimed at accelerating the development,

implementation, and dissemination of products, tools,

strategies and findings to improve health care delivery

systems. The program strives to improve health services

for more than 100 million Americans in all types of health

care delivery systems.

ACTION is a model of field-based research that brings

health services researchers together with health care

delivery systems to conduct research that will translate

into practical innovations.

Our collaborators are: Carilion Health System; Geisinger

Health System; Hospital Corporation of America; Mayo

Clinic; VCU Health Systems; Clinical Resource Consultants,

LLC; L&M Policy Research, LLC; Texas A& M University; and

Virginia Commonwealth University.

Working to Promote Innovation in Health Care Delivery


10 AIR’s TeamSTEPPS: Helping Reduce MedicalTeam ErrorsThroughout the health care community, small groups of

individuals work together in intensive care units,

operating rooms, labor and delivery wards, and family-

medicine practices. To ensure safe and efficient patient

care, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, and

other health professionals must coordinate their

activities. Although the myriad of health conditions

often require interdisciplinary teams, members of these

teams rarely train together.

AIR, at the request of the Agency for Healthcare Research

and Quality (AHRQ) and the TRICARE Management

Activity of the U.S. Department of Defense, developed

TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance

Patient Safety) in an effort to improve patient safety and

reduce medical errors.

TeamSTEPPS is an award-winning training curriculum that

AHRQ has made available as the federal standard for

training teamwork skills in health care. The federal agency

is making TeamSTEPPS available free of charge to public

and private hospitals. The curriculum will initially be

distributed to several hundred hospitals nationwide.

“Medical errors are increasing problems that all too often

are caused by human mistakes rather than technical

malfunctions,” said David Baker, an AIR principal research

scientist who has been leading the project. “The

TeamSTEPPS approach has produced impressive results

that reverse this trend.”

The curriculum is based on over 25 years of research

derived from the military and commercial aviation fields. It

focuses on the core skills of teamwork and their

relationship to critical performance-based, attitude-based,

and knowledge-based outcomes. The core facets are:

• Leadership, the ability to direct and coordinate the

activities of other team members.

• Situation Monitoring, the process of actively scan-

ning situational elements to gain awareness of the

situation in which the team functions.


11

• Mutual Support, the ability to anticipate and support

other team members’ needs through accurate

knowledge about their responsibilities and workload.

• Communication, the process by which information

is clearly and accurately exchanged among team

members.

The TeamSTEPPS program is a three-phased process aimed

at creating a culture of safety and teaching teamwork. The

process includes a pre-training assessment for site

readiness, training for on-site trainers and in-service

personnel, and implementation and sustainment for all

personnel.

In addition to developing core team skills, the program

provides tools and strategies to improve quality of care,

increase team awareness, clarify team roles and

responsibilities, improve accuracy and resulting error

reduction, resolve conflicts, improve information sharing,

and eliminate barriers to quality and safety.

The TeamSTEPPS approach has been met with great

success in a variety of settings. It has been implemented

in more than 50 U.S. military treatment facilities

worldwide. The approach also has been put into practice

at academic institutions, such as Harvard University’s

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and Duke University

Health System’s Pediatric Care Unit.

The project was named the winner of the prestigious

2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the

Workplace, given by the Society for Industrial and

Organizational Psychology “in recognition of a project or

product representing an outstanding example of the

practice of industrial and organizational psychology in

the workplace.”

Baker said, “We have had a great deal of success with this

program, and the future looks equally bright for this

success to continue.” AIR is working on expanding

TeamSTEPPS training to Rapid Response Teams, an

emerging strategy in health care to bring critical care

quickly to the bedside of a deteriorating patient. Planning

is underway for AIR to hold a conference for early users of

the curriculum in spring 2007.

Contributing to the development of TeamSTEPPS are AIR

staff members Alex Alonso, Rachel Day, Laura Steighner,

Amy Holtzman, Cassie Porter, and AIR Senior Research

Fellow Eduardo Salas.

AIR Vice President Marilyn Moon Authors Medicare BookMarilyn Moon, vice president and director of AIR’s Health Program, is the recent author of Medicare: A Policy Primer. The 230-page

book covers the essentials of the program that, since its creation in 1965, is widely credited with lifting millions of elderly out of

poverty and helping them lead longer, healthier lives. But growing costs — $333 billion in 2005 — threaten its solvency. The

Medicare hospital trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2018.

Moon, a former public trustee for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds and the board president of the Medicare Rights

Center and the National Academy of Social Insurance, lays out detailed reform options in the book published by the Urban Institute.

Her alternatives are aimed at sustaining Medicare and improving care for beneficiaries, who include 36 million seniors and 6 million

younger workers who are permanently disabled or suffer from kidney failure.


12 AIR President Sol Pelavin Addresses SchoolDistrict Superintendents at Conclave Hosted byCollege of Education at The Ohio State UniversitySol H. Pelavin, President and CEO of AIR, discussed

instilling confidence and trust within organizations and

the public during the 23rd annual meeting of the National

Academy of Superintendents hosted by the College of

Education at The Ohio State University.

The National Academy of Superintendents was

established in 1983 and is dedicated to providing school

district superintendents with the knowledge they need to

deal with the demands they face. The theme of this

summer’s four-day conference was “Leadership

Challenge: Building Trust and Confidence.”

Pelavin, noting that two-thirds of employees say they

don’t trust their bosses, cited both research data and

personal experience as he discussed how successful

leaders build trust with their staff and the public.

“We will never reduce the public’s cynicism about our

leaders and about public institutions — including the

schools — unless we find ways to rebuild respect for our

core institutions. And that means restoring trust and

confidence in our school systems and in the people who

direct them,” Pelavin said.

Pelavin, a former high school mathematics teacher,

advised the superintendents to “be honest with everyone,”

“treat everyone … with respect,” “treat promises

seriously,” “don’t over promise,” and “invest the time to

build teamwork.”

Pelavin became president and chief executive officer of

AIR in 2001, after serving as executive vice president and

chief operating officer since 1994 when the firm he

founded, Pelavin Associates, merged with AIR. Pelavin

holds advanced degrees from the University of Chicago

and Stanford University. He taught high school

mathematics in suburban Chicago before starting his

career in research.

David Myers, a nationally rec-

ognized education researcher,

has joined AIR as Senior Vice

President and Director of the

Education and Human Development Division.

“We are delighted that David Myers joined AIR,” said

President and CEO Sol H. Pelavin. “David has played a

leading role in the design, implementation, and analysis of

some of the largest and most important randomized

control trials on education conducted in the United

States.”

Myers, who earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from

Washington State University, frequently writes and

lectures about the use of experimental designs in

education settings. Prior to joining AIR, he served as

senior vice president and chief strategy officer at

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

Myers succeeds AIR Senior Vice President Jay Moskowitz

as Director of Education and Human Development.

Moskowitz was named senior vice president for special

projects and will undertake a variety of long-term

strategic ventures for AIR.

David Myers, Nationally RecognizedEducation Researcher, Joins AIR


13

Child labor is an urgent and growing problem in Southern

Africa. Tens of thousands of children, many left orphaned

by HIV/AIDS, are being deprived of a chance for an

education because they are forced to work, often under

hazardous or demeaning conditions.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, AIR is

working through the Reducing Exploitive Child Labor in

Southern Africa (RECLISA) project to reduce the level of

child labor through improved access to education for at-

risk children. The United Nations’ International Labor

Organization estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa more

than 49 million children are engaged in hazardous

agricultural work or forced into other exploitive jobs.

In Lesotho and South Africa, AIR is providing both formal

and non-formal education to children, mainly boys, who

herd cattle in remote areas under dangerous conditions.

In Namibia and Swaziland we are identifying children

orphaned by HIV/AIDS and supporting them with

education services and community-based care. In

Botswana, we are providing non-formal education

opportunities for street children. And in South Africa we

are working to raise awareness on child labor issues,

provide educational and social services to orphans and

street children, and improve educational opportunities

for pregnant girls.

During 2006, AIR and its partner Khulisa Management

Services hosted a conference in Johannesburg, South

Africa on reducing child labor that attracted more than

270 international experts from 12 countries. The three-

day conference focused on the problems in Lesotho,

Swaziland, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.

Participants included government officials, academics,

independent consultants and representatives from non-

governmental organizations, community-based

organizations, and a variety of international agencies.

“All too often child labor robs the young of an education,

indeed of their childhood itself, yet their voices rarely

reach our ears,” said Phil Christensen, AIR’s Chief of Party

for RECLISA. “We must speak for the voiceless victims of

child labor. We are the ones who can — and must — hear

their cries and respond to their pleas.”

AIR Plays a Leading Role in Efforts to End ChildLabor Abuses in Southern Africa


14

AIR is working to improve education in earthquake

devastated areas of Pakistan under a four-year grant by

the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to

implement their Revitalizing, Innovating, Strengthening

Education (RISE) program.

AIR, joining with local Pakistani organizations and

international partners, is working to improve educational

opportunities in the earthquake devastated districts of

Bagh and Mansehra. On October 8, 2005, a massive

earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, killed tens

of thousands of people and left millions homeless.

The RISE program will: Work with teachers, parents and

communities to improve the quality of classroom

instruction; train primary, middle and high school

teachers; enhance the learning experience for students;

and build community participation in education.

Tanveer Latif, AIR’s project manager for teacher training

in Bagh, saw her family dislocated and devastated by the

earthquake. “The new realities are so ugly and so painful.

We have to come out of the disaster,” she said, reflecting

the spirit of the people and of the RISE program. “We

need a special type of teacher training now. The

psychology of the people has changed. There is no time

for luxuries. All the schools need a new healing. We must

do. We must share.”

The RISE team will facilitate new approaches to

education, including implementation of a Healing

Schools activity that will focus on the comprehensive

educational and development needs of children in post-

disaster situations, a Subh-e-Nau (New Beginnings)

initiative to support activity-based learning projects at

the school level, and professional development activities

for district education officers.

AIR Is Working to Improve Education inEarthquake Devastated Areas of Pakistan

Phil Davies, one of the British

government’s chief social

researchers, has joined AIR as

a senior research fellow and

the executive director of the Campbell Collaboration, an

organization representing leading social scientists around

the world.

Davies, a former professor at Oxford University, spent

nearly 30 years in academic research before becoming

the deputy director of Great Britain’s Government

Social Research Unit (GSRU) in 2000. He was

responsible for establishing and maintaining the

highest standards of social research to support the

British government’s efforts to apply the information

gathered from academic social research into policy

making and strategic development.

The Campbell Collaboration, which became part of AIR in

2005, produces, maintains and disseminates systematic

reviews of studies of the effects of social and behavioral

interventions.

Prominent British Researcher Phil Davies Joins AIR


15Results of an AIR Study Challenges Premise ofCalifornia’s Prop. 227 on Learning EnglishIn 1998, California voters approved Proposition 227,

which requires that school districts across the state teach

English language learners “overwhelmingly in English”

under a one-year English immersion program. It was

assumed that English immersion programs would produce

better results than bilingual education.

AIR researchers conducted a five-year study of the impact

of Proposition 227 and found no conclusive evidence to

support either approach

over the other.

“Proposition 227 was

based on the premise of

the superiority of a single

approach. This study chal-

lenges that assumption,”

said Tom Parrish, AIR’s

principal investigator for

the study. “Given the

diverse learning needs of

English learners, we rec-

ommend less emphasis on

dictating specific meth-

ods, continuing on the

more general path of

rewarding school academic success and intervening in the

case of failure wherever it occurs.”

The “Effects of the Implementation of the Proposition 227

on the Education of English Learners, K-12,” performed in

conjunction with WestEd, was submitted to the California

State Legislature.

The AIR team was led by Parrish and project co-directors

Amy Merickel and Maria Perez. Merickel testified before

an English learner group of the California Assembly

Education Committee, prompting lawmakers to craft

legislation based upon the findings and

recommendations. Another witness at the hearing,

Professor Jill Kerper Mora of San Diego State University,

said the report represents a pivotal milestone in

considering how the state will address English learner

education.

The San Francisco Chronicle, in an editorial citing the

results of what it described as a “major” study,

concluded that “This report may not end the controversy

over English language acquisition. But it does challenge

the presumption that a voter initiative can solve a

problem as complicated as how immigrants from a range

of backgrounds and cultures can learn English and excel

in school.”

Some of the study findings include:

• Since the passage of Proposition 227, the perform-

ance gap between English learners and native

English speakers has remained virtually constant in

most subject areas for most grades.

• That these gaps have not widened is noteworthy

given the substantial increase in the percentage of

English learners participating in statewide tests, as

required by federal and state accountability provi-

sions.

• The likelihood of an English learner meeting the lin-

guistic and academic criteria needed to reclassify

them to fluent English proficient status after 10

years in California schools is less than 40 percent.

• The factors identified as most critical to success

were: staff capacity to address English learners’ lin-

guistic and academic needs; schoolwide focus on

English language development and standards-based

instruction; shared priorities and expectations in

educating English learners and systematic, ongoing

assessment and careful data use to guide instruction.

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Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), spoke

to AIR staff recently about the role of federal statistics in support of public policy in education.

He addressed a wide range of subjects, including the condition of American education, from

pre-K through postsecondary education. NCES, located within the U.S. Department of

Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting

and analyzing data related to education.

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and AIR are

jointly supporting the AERA-AIR (A2) Fellows Program, which encourages

the development of highly skilled education researchers experienced in

working on large-scale studies in major research environments.

The A2 Fellows Program provides research and training opportunities to

recent Ph.D. or Ed.D. degree recipients in fields and disciplines related to

the scientific study of education and educational processes. The program

also aims to increase the number of underrepresented minority

professionals conducting advanced research or technical assistance.

Up to three fellows are selected annually for two-year positions at AIR’s

Washington, D.C., office. To learn more about the program and how to

apply, visit the AERA Web site, www.aera.net, or the AIR Web site,

www.air.org. The next deadline for applications is February 15, 2007.

AIR and the American Educational Research AssociationOffer Fellows Program

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