International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have had significant impact on education policy across the globe. But has interest in ILSAs now started to wane? This paper presents new evidence on this issue, exploring how the amount of attention three major ILSAs receive compares across countries, between studies and over time. Using information on…

Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. students attend rural schools. Researchers report that at least half of public schools are rural in 12 states (i.e., Montana, South Dakota, Vermont, North Dakota, Maine, Alaska, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Mississippi) (Showalter et al., 2019). Providing quality education to all rural students is a…

Standardised International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have gained prominence in global and national educational discussions. ILSAs claim to offer valuable insights for improving education systems, but their impact on educational policy varies and has become a contested arena. This article analyses how these assessments fed educational…

This brief examines Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) science achievement of the 20% highest and the 20% lowest performing fourth and eighth graders in 11 countries. To do so, the authors compare achievement distributions across countries, using measures of relative equality within countries. Such an examination…

Students living in poverty tend to perform worse in school than their peers from better-off families. This paper examines whether computer availability helps narrow down educational inequalities in Slovakia, using TIMSS and PIRLS data. The results show that computer availability in reading lessons improves reading scores and that the effect is…

The National Assessment Governing Board (Governing Board) is an independent, bipartisan organization that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as The Nation's Report Card. This paper provides a summary of the history of the Governing Board framework development processes and the evolution of the…

Kuwait, has participated in international TIMSS test for many years, however, there has been little systematic effort to compile and assess changes between genders. This study attempts to look at the results of Kuwaiti students on the TIMSS mathematics assessments in general and according to gender in particular and the views of supervisors on the…

This annual report provides information for the 2021-22 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

The discourse of quality has permeated everyday discussions about education, yet the concept as such remains complex. Moreover, during the constant struggle to improve educational quality, governments have increasingly devoted attention to the results of international large-scale assessments. As those results are used to inform policy decisions to…

This annual report provides information for the 2020-21 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

This annual report provides information for the 2017-18 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

This annual report provides information for the 2018-19 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

Recognizing the limitations of the existing frameworks and models applied to estimate the learning loss caused by COVID-19 across the world by different studies, and the urgent need for estimating such loss at the different education levels, this paper, employs the Education Value Chain Analysis ( EVCA) approach as a new paradigm, attempts to…