The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of Pennsylvania school library programs on student learning--specifically, the infrastructure (staffing, budgets, collections, technology, and access hours) that contributes most to student achievement, the costs and benefits associated with them, and the gap between current Pennsylvania school…

In grade 8 (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), Pennsylvania showed across-the-board gains--improvements in reading and math at the basic, proficient, and advanced levels for all racial/ethnic subgroups, low-income students, and boys and girls. Achievement gaps generally narrowed at grades 4 and 8 but…

Representative samples of fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from 21 urban districts participated in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics. Eighteen of the districts participating in the 2011 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) participated in earlier assessment years, while three districts…

Representative samples of fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from 21 urban districts participated in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading. Eighteen of the districts participating in the 2011 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) participated in earlier assessment years, while three districts…

This year the Center on Education Policy (CEP) 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…