This report highlights the results of Austin ISD 4th- and 8th-grade students on the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation's Report Card.

The Internet has become the primary source for obtaining information at work, at home, and for school. Because Internet reading increasingly is becoming one of the central ways students are acquiring information, in 2016, PIRLS was extended to include ePIRLS--an innovative assessment of online reading. ePIRLS is a computer-based assessment that…

How can teachers integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals into their classrooms? A teacher and teacher educator duo provide a wonderfully detailed account of how they designed and implemented a curriculum focused on SDG Goal 12, Responsible Consumption and Production. Through their journey to empower children to be critical and compassionate…

Noting that 60 percent of both fourth and eighth graders currently struggle with reading, this report urges the U.S. Congress to focus on students' literacy development from early childhood through grade twelve as it works to rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In…

The reading framework for the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents the assessment's conceptual base and discusses its content. The framework describes the types of texts and questions that should be included in the assessment, as well as how the questions should be designed and scored. This report provides highlights of…

As the ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading regularly collects achievement information on representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. Through The Nation's Report Card, the NAEP Reading Assessment reports how well students perform in…

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, U.S. officials issued a series of proclamations that violated the civil and human rights of the vast majority of Japanese Americans in the United States--ostensibly to protect the nation from further Japanese aggression. The proclamations culminated in Executive Order 9066, which gave the…

Teaching songs from a wide variety of cultures is commonplace in music classrooms around the United States. Students gain understanding of and insight into a wide range of cultures by singing their songs and listening to their music. The Afghan Children's Songbook Project is a project focused on preserving and returning traditional songs,…

Concerns regarding literacy levels in the United States are long standing. Debates have existed for decades regarding the most effective ways to teach reading, especially the polarizing dilemma of how much to focus on decoding versus code-emphasis and whole language instruction. Fortunately, as a result of concentrated research efforts and…

Around one table, four 4th-grade girls chat quietly as they write on their laptops: Ruby interviews Alejandra about her experience crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as a 6-year-old. Meanwhile, Cindy turns notes from an interview with her uncle into a narrative about his immigration experience. Next to them, four boys work on the "Sin Fronteras…

The "2017 KIDS COUNT Data Book" urges policymakers not to back away from targeted investments that help U.S. children become healthier, more likely to complete high school and better positioned to contribute to the nation's economy as adults. The "Data Book" also shows the child poverty rate in 2015 continued to drop, landing…

The National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), working with several other groups, launched a project to develop a "common core" of standards that, if adopted by the states, would give a set of national standards in reading and mathematics with other subjects to come later. The author says…

The author of this paper describes the responsibilities of the National Assessment Governing Board, of which she served as a member from November 1997 to September 2004. The Board is unlike any other board of which she has been a member. At the quarterly meetings, the Board not only discusses and makes major policy decisions but determines the…

The "KIDS COUNT Data Book" is an annual publication that assesses child well-being nationally and across the 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Using an index of 16 indicators, the report ranks states on overall child well-being and in economic well-being, education, health and family and community. The…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a continuing and nationally representative assessment of what this nation's students know and can do. NAEP has often been called the "gold standard" of assessments because it is developed using the best thinking of assessment and content specialists, education experts, and…