The purpose of this report is to describe the technical qualities of the 2018-2019 operational administration of the English language arts/literacy (ELA/L) and mathematics summative assessments in grades 3 through 8 and high school. The ELA/L assessments focus on reading and comprehending a range of sufficiently complex texts independently and…

The purpose of this report is to describe the technical qualities of the 2018-2019 operational administration of the English language arts/literacy (ELA/L) and mathematics assessments in grades 3 through 8 and high school. New Meridian, in coordination with multiple states and vendors, developed an alternate form of the summative assessment to…

This "Eighth Annual Report Card" tracks progress on Boston's goals for educating learners of all ages. The report lays out Boston Opportunity Agenda's current metrics, the baseline that has been established for the future, and the progress to be made over the course of the next five years. This report card contains the most up-to-date…

Research shows that summer slide--the loss of learning over the summer break--is a huge contributor to the achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income peers. In fact, some researchers have concluded that two-thirds of the 9th-grade reading achievement gap can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities…

The "Seventh Annual Report Card" provides the most up-to-date information available on Boston's education pipeline, from kindergarten through college graduation, including measures for school readiness, 3rd-grade reading proficiency, 6th-grade mathematics proficiency, 10th-grade academic proficiency, high school completion, dropout…

This "Sixth Annual Report Card" reflects the progress that is being made throughout Boston's entire education pipeline. More than 77,000 school-age children live in the City of Boston. The vast majority, 93%, attend a school in the Boston Public Schools system, a Boston Charter public school, or a Boston Catholic school. The goal with…

In 2005, Loris (SC) High School was ranked near the bottom of all high schools in South Carolina. The newly appointed principal, Trevor Strawderman, had been the school's assistant principal. He knew that literacy presented the biggest challenge at Loris: 74% of the students in 9th and 10th grade were reading below grade level. Because of the low…

Within the Response-to-Intervention framework, students who fail to profit from high-quality general education instruction, accommodations, and supplemental instruction progress to a more intensive intervention program, sometimes referred to as "Tier III." This article describes a problem-solving approach to designing such intensive, data-based,…

This "Fourth Annual Report Card" marks a new chapter for the Boston Opportunity Agenda. For the first time, the Boston Opportunity Agenda is reporting student outcomes across Boston Public Schools and Catholic and charter schools. This provides a comprehensive baseline view of the education pipeline for the city's K-12 students. The…

Many studies and reports in recent years have argued that there's an important "expectations gap" between the skills students are typically bringing to college and what college teachers think students should be bringing with them to college. This article, presented in the form of an open letter to first-year high school students, is an attempt…

This "Third Annual Report Card" looks at improvements in the cradle-to-career educational pipeline, the areas where Boston has made modest progress but still has a great deal of work to do, and the places where observers have failed to see the gains that are needed to ensure that Boston is a city of opportunity for all. This report card…

This paper chronicles the evolution of a metaphorical graphical user interface (MGUI) at Lehigh University (Pennsylvania). From its inception, "The Funeral of Edgar" has been a guided exploration of Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven," aimed at modeling high school students' critical and analytical reading skills. This product…

Chicago Public Schools, spending more than its $1.5 billion a year budget, has defined its first obligation as producing graduates who can read well. This study assesses how well the school system is succeeding by examining roughly 39,500 students who were ninth graders in fall 1980 and should have graduated in spring 1984. Statistics were used to…

The reading program model developed at Ypsilanti High School (Michigan) is described in this paper and is suggested as a method of solving reading problems encountered by high school students. The first section of the paper contains an overview of the content area reading program, including descriptions of the program's philosophy, components,…

The "Education Evaluation and Remedial Assistance" section 10-14n of the Connecticut General Statutes, requires that the State Board of Education administer an annual statewide proficiency examination in basic reading, language arts, and mathematic skills to all ninth-grade students. This report describes the development of the test and…