This is the fifth annual edition of the Brown Center Report on American Education. It analyzes the difficulty of items on the math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), examines the content training of middle school math teachers, and evaluates the Blue Ribbon Schools Program. The NAEP assesses student performance…

The job description for paraprofessionals is no longer limited to clerical responsibilities (e.g., recordkeeping, copying, cafeteria and bus duty). Paraprofessionals now support instruction and work under the direction and supervision of certified teachers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, paraprofessionals provide instructional and…

This report examines key elements of effective new teacher assessment and support, reviews southeastern states' progress in developing quality induction programs, and offers recommendations for action. More dollars are being invested in new teachers than ever before, and some states have markedly increased the quantity of new teacher support…

For the past twenty years, federal and state education departments and school districts have been engaged in efforts that have touched every phase of public education. People have seen the emergence of the standards movement, "high-stake" testing, and an emphasis on school accountability. Requirements for those entering the teaching…

This report examines the implementation of No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) supplemental educational service provisions in eleven urban districts--Mesa Public Schools and Washington Elementary District Schools, AZ, Fresno Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified School District, CA, Chicago Public Schools, IL, Buffalo Public Schools and New…

Redefining the federal government's role in kindergarten through grade 12 education, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is designed to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. The act is based on four principles, the first of which is stronger accountability for results, entailing creation of…

Standards-based reform relies on the premise that every student can reach higher levels of achievement if certain criteria are met. This brief, for policymakers, provides a short history of educational standards, an explanation of how standards-based reform works, and ways to align standards with other key policies to create meaningful reform.…

In June 2004, three out of four public schools in Florida failed to meet a new federal standard for school improvement, including one arts school that had earned "A" ratings on statewide tests for four consecutive years (Shanklin 2004). How can so many schools, including "A" schools, be failing? The answer: the No Child Left…

In this article, the author discusses multiage education. Multiage education hailed as recently as 10 years ago as a promising way to restructure schools and boost student achievement but now has fallen on hard times. Interest in the issue has waned, with new research on the topic virtually nonexistent and attendance at national multiage…

This article discusses the efforts made by the states by adding reading and math exams in previously untested grades as well as setting new performance standards. A survey conducted by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center found that at least 11 states set new achievement levels in reading/language arts. About nine states did so in…

In regards to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the emperor is not wearing any clothes. The author contends that this bill uses impressive sounding buzz words and phraseology with which one can hardly disagree, but in essence it offers no new innovations or does nothing to improve the fundamental quality of education. This bill is not based on…

IDEA and NCLB support the case for including English language learners with disabilities in standards-based reform and school accountability efforts. Few states make statewide data on the participation and performance of English language learners with disabilities publicly available. Therefore, district assessment data on English language learners…

Drawing on their legal expertise and their experience working with public school districts, John W. Borkowski and Maree Sneed discuss the controversies surrounding the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). They acknowledge that its principal benefits lie in its recognition of the right of each child to learn and be assessed by…

Accountability and assessment are critical components to the success of schools today. As leaders of school districts, superintendents in Texas and across the nation are faced daily with meeting this challenge. While doing so, they must remember that their priority commitment is not to testing programs, but to helping children achieve.…

The idea that validity should be considered a property of inferences, rather than of assessments, has developed slowly over the past century. In early writings about the validity of educational assessments, validity was defined as a property of an assessment. The most common definition was that an assessment was valid to the extent that it…