AIR Experts Co-Author Condition of Education 2015 Report Submitted to Congress

Experts with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) co-authored "The Condition of Education 2015," a federally-mandated report on U.S. education trends issued by the National Center for Education Statistics. AIR staff have had a significant role in writing and producing the report, which is submitted to Congress, for the past 15 years.

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) May 28, 2015

Experts with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) co-authored "The Condition of Education 2015," a federally-mandated report on U.S. education trends issued by the National Center for Education Statistics. AIR staff have had a significant role in writing and producing the report, which is submitted to Congress, for the past 15 years.

AIR experts worked with data from complex survey designs, conducted statistical analysis and testing, wrote key findings, and authored many of the indicators found in the report. AIR also developed tools to centralize communication among the report's authors and reviewers.

The 2015 report presents 42 key indicators in four main areas: population characteristics; participation in education; elementary and secondary education; and postsecondary education. The report also features spotlight indicators on three issues—learning behaviors for first-time kindergartners, disparities in educational outcomes among male youth, and differences in postsecondary degree completion by socioeconomic status.

Report findings include:

    In 2014, some 91 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds had received at least a high school diploma or its equivalent.

    Between 1990 and 2014, the size of the white-black gap in attainment of a high school diploma or its equivalent narrowed from 8 to 4 percentage points, and the size of the white-Hispanic gap narrowed from 32 to 21 percentage points.

    Teachers of children attending kindergarten for the first time in 2010 said about 26 percent of their students demonstrated positive approaches to learning behaviors "very often," 47 percent "often," 25 percent "sometimes," and 1 percent demonstrated them "never" in the fall of kindergarten.

The report's AIR authors include Xiaolei Wang, Amy Rathbun, Jijun Zhang and Sidney Flicker-Wilkinson. The report is available at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe.

About AIR
Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education and workforce productivity. For more information, visit http://www.air.org.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/05/prweb12752521.htm