This report focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kalamazoo Public Schools District in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which closed its doors to students from mid-March 2020 to June 2021. During this time, instruction transitioned from face-to-face to virtual, with students having three options for virtual instruction. In addition to individual KPS student…

A number of states have taken steps toward promoting student wellness, with many of their state boards of education in the middle of the action. This article contains some examples of states leading on student wellness by addressing physical fitness, social and emotional learning (SEL), and mental health supports. The Every Student Succeeds Act…

As part of integrated instruction, educators aim to efficiently and simultaneously address learning goals across multiple subject areas like English language arts (ELA) and science or social studies. While studies are beginning to show that this instructional approach can be effective, it is challenging to implement in practice, requiring that…

Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) partnered with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to conduct a multi-year study of Michigan's implementation of competency-based education in K-12 schools. This mixed-methods study seeks to investigate the implementation and effectiveness of CBE using data from surveys administered to 21j…

Business leaders in Michigan cannot find the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent they need to stay competitive. Students' lagging performance in K-12 is a critical reason why. The good news is that the nation's most effective STEM education programs can help turn the tide. Yet there is much work to do. Students have made…

Michigan has a problem. By several measures, the achievement of students attending its K-12 educational system has not kept pace with other states. Although Michigan's student achievement has improved over the past decade, the improvement has been modest, and achievement in many other states has easily surpassed that in Michigan. Furthermore,…

This article provides provide a new, systematic profile of more than 18,000 homeless students in Michigan, utilizing rich administrative data from all test-taking students in Grades 3-9 during three academic years. These data are part of a larger study of school choice and student mobility in that state. Homelessness is a condition found…

State of Michigan Education report -- "Stalled to Soaring: Michigan's Path to Educational Recovery" -- is the result of months of research and a year of Education Trust-Midwest's efforts to monitor where Michigan is making progress on improving public education. The report findings include: (1) Michigan now ranks in the bottom five…

This study is an examination of Florida and Michigan's performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress's (NAEP) standardized test, often referred to as "the nation's report card." Immediately prior to and during Florida's immense improvement on these scores from the past 15 years, the state made substantial changes to its…

For all the fractious debate in America over the state of public schools, those on the political Left and Right agree that the "achievement gaps" are real. But what do most people mean when they say "achievement gaps"? Gaps in standardized test scores, of course. The gaps consist of the differences between the test scores of…

The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) was designed to provide information on the extent to which Michigan students have attained minimal performance objectives. This manual was written to help local Michigan school district staff read, interpret, and use MEAP data. The 1977-78 MEAP provided objective-referenced achievement measures in…

In two succeeding years, 1974 and 1975, the same attitude questionnaire is given to students in succeeding grades to determine attitude change as they move from third to fourth grade or from sixth to seventh grade. Rather than reporting on each of thirty-five attitude items separately, a statistical technique is applied to select the most…

This report compares Michigan's reading and mathematics performance on the most recent administrations of the state assessment with performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). To indicate how Michigan is doing in narrowing the academic achievement gap between African American, Latino, or low-income students and their…

As part of the career development curriculum materials for Michigan schools, this packet contains six sample student assessment test booklets. One of the test booklets provided is for grade 4; two are for grade 7; three are for grade 10. The booklets assess students' progress in meeting the state's essential performance objectives for career…