From 2010 onwards, most US states have aligned their education standards by adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English Language Arts. The CCSS did not target other subjects such as science and social studies. We estimate spillovers of the CCSS on student achievement in non-targeted subjects in models with state and year…

This is the 21st report by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) that describes how states publicly report assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States. The purpose of this report is to examine the extent to which states reported 2017-18 assessment data for students with disabilities "to the…

Secondary school tracking is organized in some countries on a course-by-course basis within schools and in other countries as explicit academic and vocational streaming, often in separate school buildings. This article is the first to compare these two forms of tracking, using student-level tracking data across the United States and 19 other…

This report presents key findings from "Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement," by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan, and published by Princeton University Press in 2019. American education has long been plagued by excellence gaps among the young people who make it into the highest levels…

Minority and low-income students are less likely to have access to, enroll in and succeed in higher-level math courses in high school than their more advantaged peers. Under these circumstances, higher-level math courses function not as the intellectual and practical boost they should be, but as a filter that screens students out of the pathway to…

States are responsible for setting the minimum number of students needed to form a student subgroup for federal reporting and accountability purposes. This required student subgroup size is commonly referred to as the state-set "n-size." States should set this number as low as possible to maximize the number of student subgroups created.…

There has been a steady increase in the number of so-called dual-credit classes which allow high school students to earn high school and college credits simultaneously. There also has been an increase in the number of such classes students are taking. The author asks whether the classes are ameliorating the problems they were intended to fix:…

Have efforts to improve schools neglected high achievers? A growing chorus of critics is voicing concern for the achievement gap, but not the gap between well-to-do and poor students, or white and non-white students. The gap that most worries them is the one between U.S. students and students in other industrialized nations. Among the 34 nations…

The performance of Asian boys and girls on Advanced Placement (AP) exam overall scores across the United States for the past 14 years was analyzed. For each of the 14 years of data analyzed, Asian boys had statistically significant higher percentages of overall AP exam scores of 5 than did Asian girls. In addition, the gap between the mean…

As of January 1, 2013, 34 states and the District of Columbia have been granted waivers from certain provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Part of each successful flexibility application was a state accountability system that could identify priority schools (the lowest performing 5% of Title 1 schools) and focus schools…

Nationwide, from 2005 to 2010, 1.6 minority (non-white) students enrolled in college for every additional white student who enrolled. In the SREB (Southern Regional Education Board) region that meant 700,312 more minority college students and 411,915 more white college students. Increases in minority student enrollment accounted for almost…

This is the fourteenth report by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) that analyzes public reporting practices for assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States. This report includes information about both the 50 regular states and the 11 unique states (American Samoa, Bureau of Indian Education,…

In 2004, the pattern in academic pathways for high school students in the USA showed that students were completing more demanding mathematics courses. Despite the upward pattern in advanced-level mathematics course-taking, disparities among racial/ethnic groups persisted between 1982 and 2004. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of…

The issue of the "boy gap" or "boy crisis" in education has been the subject of increasing attention across a number of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Given the importance of this issue and the need to better understand the situation in boys' education, this report draws on material and…

Prevalent definitions of the achievement gap conceptualize it as the difference in achievement between white and minority students. Recent research, however, points to numerous gaps both within and between groups. This study explores a further conceptualization of achievement gaps by looking at the "underachievement gap"--the difference…