This technical report and user's guide is designed to provide researchers with an overview of the design and implementation of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), as well as with information on how to access the PISA 2009 data. This information is meant to supplement that presented in Organization for Economic Cooperation…

Results from national reading assessments reveal that millions of young people leave high school without the advanced reading and writing skills required for career and college success. Young adults who lack reading and writing proficiency will likely be relegated to the ranks of unskilled workers in a world where literacy is an absolute…

Objective: The authors compare and contrast psychiatry residency training in the United States to that in Canada and selected countries in South America, Europe, and Asia. Method: Nine individuals who are intimately familiar with psychiatry residency training in the United States (primarily chairs, training directors, associate training directors,…

After eight years of implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and other school reforms, how much progress have states, school districts, and schools made in raising achievement for students from all backgrounds and closing achievement gaps based on race, ethnicity, income, and gender? To help answer this question, the Center on…

To help inform policymakers and the public about the progress of education in the United States, Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report, "The Condition of Education." This year's report presents 42 indicators of important developments and trends in U.S. education. These…

This report has a simple aim: to present results from international assessments so readers can judge for themselves how American students stack up globally. It's intended to be a stand-alone supplement to the "Education Olympics" web event held between August 8th and August 22nd, 2008 (see edolympics.net). It shows how the U.S. has…

The National Indian Education Study (NIES) is administered as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which was expanded to allow more in-depth reporting on the achievement and experiences of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. It fulfills a mandate of Executive Order 13336 issued in 2004 calling for closer…

This report presents results of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and mathematics at grade 12. Results for students in the nation and, for the first time, in the 11 states that volunteered to participate in the 2009 state pilot program are reported as average scores and as percentages of students performing at…

In 2006, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new classification system to make the reporting of locale data consistent across its various surveys and to be more precise in its classification of rural areas. This report brings together data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Census surveys and…

The purpose of this document is to provide background information that will be useful in interpreting the 2007 results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) by comparing its design, features, framework, and items with those of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress and another international assessment…

The perceived crisis in reading achievement may be misplaced--the real crisis may be what is ignored in the curriculum. People are alarmed at the lack of emphasis being placed on teaching content knowledge in many of today's classrooms. They laugh when Jay Leno takes to the street, interviewing teenagers and young adults who do not have the…

Every year, New Zealand assesses students' learning progress through the National Educational Monitoring Project (NEMP). NEMP is a national, formative evaluation effort that provides New Zealand educators with an accurate picture of students' education progress at Year 4 and Year 8, which are roughly comparable to grades 3 and 7 in the United…

This report presents the results for Part I of the study focusing on the performance of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) fourth- and eighth-graders on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and mathematics. A national sample of approximately 10,100 AI/AN students at grades 4 and 8 participated in the 2007 reading…

This comprehensive volume offers a snapshot profile of every public school district in the United States serving 1,500 or more students and provides pertinent evaluative and demographic statistics necessary to evaluate educational programs nationwide. "The Comparative Guide to American Elementary & Secondary Schools" is a…

The purpose of this presentation was to interpret the results of two large-scale assessments of textbook usage in light of criticism that textbooks are ineffective teaching/learning tools. One assessment occurred as a follow-up to a Schools and Staffing Survey involving 3,994 classroom teachers, who were asked about their classroom practices in…