As parents, communities, educators, and policymakers continue to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning in America, many have turned to recently released results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP measures what students know and what they can do in several tested subjects, including reading,…

Third grade is a critical checkpoint in a child's educational journey. By the end of third grade, children need literacy skills that prepare them for increasing curriculum demands in fourth grade and beyond. Students who are not reading on grade level by this point are significantly more likely to drop out of high school or fail to graduate on…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. One important tool is the concordance table between MAP and state summative assessments. Concordance tables have been used for decades to relate scores on…

The study reviewed in this paper examined three separate methods for teaching the "control of variables strategy" ("CVS"), a procedure for conducting a science experiment so that only one variable is tested and all others are held constant, or "controlled." The study analyzed data from a randomized controlled trial of…

Background: In an ongoing effort to improve teacher quality, most states require continuing education or professional development for their in-service teachers. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of various professional development programs have assumed a normal distribution of quality of teachers participating in the programs. Because…

There is a rising concern among educators today related to student success on end-of-year state academic assessments, especially in reading. A quasi-experimental, pre- and post-test design with a comparison group was used to look at the impact of teacher-modeled and -guided students' self-assessment and setting of learning targets on reading…

This article addresses the application of the assessment triangle developed by the National Research Council (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001), most specifically the cognition vertex of that triangle, to the unique learning characteristics of students with significant cognitive disabilities in developing and demonstrating academic…

This year the Center on Education Policy analyzed data on the achievement of different groups of students in two distinct ways. First, it looked at grade 4 test results to determine whether the performance of various groups improved at three achievement levels--basic and above, proficient and above, and advanced. Second, it looked at gaps between…

"Taking Stock and Pushing Forward" (2014) reports states' progress toward the Challenge to Lead 2020 Goals for Education. State-specific documents report on student achievement as well as essential state policies to improve it. Among the many metrics: how states are improving achievement on NAEP [National Assessment of Educational…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

Guided by a new framework, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts…

Each district that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment in reading receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. This report presents the results for Jefferson County Public Schools' student achievement in reading. In 2009, the…

This report describes efforts by five states (Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) to improve adolescent literacy. Highlighting common challenges and lessons, the report examines how each state has engaged key stakeholders, set rigorous goals and standards, aligned resources to support adolescent literacy goals, built…

Measuring History complements the cases presented in Wise Social Studies Practices (Yeager & Davis, 2005). Yeager and Davis highlight the rich and ambitious teaching that can occur in the broad context of state-level testing. In this book, the chapter authors and I bring the particular state history tests more to the fore and examine how…

SREB states were among the first in the nation to set comprehensive state academic standards for K-12 schools. Setting these initial standards was only part of the job. Getting these standards right and keeping them right may be the most important task facing public education today. If state standards are too low, many public school graduates will…