This report examines and explains the most recent achievement results for New York City and New York State students in district and charter schools, and to put New York City's achievement levels in context. The New York City public school system is the largest in the country, with more than 1 million students in grades prekindergarten through 12…

In 2012, New York education officials and the state's teachers union announced one of the nation's most aggressive programs for teacher and principal evaluation--the Annual Professional Performance Review system (APPR)--which required that 40% of an educator's evaluation be based on student growth, using a combination of the state assessment and…

Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) computer adaptive interim assessments serve many purposes, from informing instruction to identifying students for intervention to projecting proficiency on state accountability assessments. To make sure its flagship product does the latter, Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) routinely conducts studies…

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is proud to present the first in their latest series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. This series explores afterschool and: the Common Core State Standards, students…

In 2010, the National Center for Learning and Civic Engagement (NCLCE) established the Schools of Success, a national network of 19 schools that use service-learning as an instructional strategy. The schools were part of a three-year project to examine how the elements of service-learning might enhance key student outcomes, such as academic…

"Leveled Literacy Intervention" ("LLI") is a short-term, supplementary, small-group literacy intervention designed to help struggling readers achieve grade-level competency. The intervention provides explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, oral language skills, and…

When New York state released the first results of the exams under the Common Core State Standards, many wrongly believed that the results showed dramatic declines in student achievement. A closer look at the results showed that student achievement may have increased. Another lesson from the exams is that states need to closely coordinate new data…

Do teachers continue to improve in their effectiveness as they gain experience in the teaching profession? This paper aims to answer that question by critically reviewing recent literature that analyzes the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in K-12 public schools in the United States. This report reviews 30 studies published within…

On August 7th, 2013, the New York State Education Commissioner, John King, announced the initial results of the state's new assessment, which was designed to measure college and career readiness relative to the Common Core Learning Standards. Commissioner King noted that the proficiency rates on these assessments were significantly lower than…

Recently, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) released a document that established initial performance levels and the associated threshold scale scores for the Smarter Balanced assessment. The report included estimated percentages of students expected to perform at each of the four performance levels, reported by grade…

While heads were spinning, policy watchers seemed genuinely perplexed by New York City's Mayor de Blasio's education opinions. De Blasio opposed many of Bloomberg's reform efforts despite the achievement gains realized by the nation's largest school district during the last 12 years. Yet on close reading, de Blasio's nine-page education plan…

The study examined in this paper focuses on whether monetary bonuses for teachers improved schoolwide academic achievement in New York City public schools. Study authors analyzed data from 389 high-need elementary, middle, and high schools in New York City in the first year of the bonus program (2007-08) and from 371 of those same schools in the…

Cutscores for reading and math (general outcome measures) to predict passage on New York state-mandated assessments were created by using a freely available Excel workbook. The authors used linear regression to create the cutscores and diagnostic indicators were provided. A rationale and procedure for using this method is outlined. This method…

Results from the 2013 NAEP assessments show fourth- and eighth-graders making progress in mathematics and reading. Nationally representative samples of more than 376,000 fourth-graders and 341,000 eighth-graders were assessed in either mathematics or reading in 2013. Results are reported for public and private school students in the nation, and…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effects of offering a school-wide teacher performance bonus program on students' reading and mathematics achievement. The study sample included 309 high-poverty New York City public schools serving students in grades K-8 from 2007-08 to 2008-09. Of these schools, 181 were randomly chosen to be offered…