Through ESSA (2015) and IDEIA (2004), all students must participate in statewide assessments and students with disabilities are entitled to receive reasonable adaptations and accommodations in order to ensure that the assessments accurately measure their achievement within the designated academic areas. Research indicates that the provision of an…

To measure the impact of fine arts instruction in HISD [Houston Independent School District] , the study compared the STAAR [State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness] performance, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes of fine arts students enrolled in Fine Arts Magnet schools (treatment group) with students enrolled in non-Fine Arts Magnet…

This fifth annual "Boston Opportunity Agenda 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, 10th-grade academic proficiency, high school completion, dropout rates, college…

The "Condition of Education" is an annual report mandated by the U.S. Congress that summarizes the latest data on education in the United States. This report uses data from across the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and from other sources and is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress.…

At the request of Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT), Mathematica is developing value-added models (VAMs) that aim to estimate the contributions of individual teachers, teams of teachers, and schools to the achievement growth of their students. The analyses described in this report are intended as an…

While structural reform has certainly inspired change in Boston's public schools, its true value is best measured by examining the impact those changes have had on students. Seen through the lens of student performance over the past five years there is ample suggestion that these structural changes have been more than just window dressing--they…

The percentage of eighth graders on target to be ready for college-level work by the time they graduate from high school is so small that it raises questions not just about the prospect that these students can eventually be ready for college, but also about whether they are even ready for high school. A new longitudinal study by ACT (in press)…

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the average 17-year-old today is no more proficient at reading or mathematics than his counterpart in 1970. Some progress has been made by 9- and 13-year-olds, but the gains evaporate by the time these students reach the end of their K-12 experience. The average 17-year-old…

This study examines the October 1991 exit-level Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) mathematics results of 18,290 11th-grade Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and White non-Hispanic Americans from Texas urban districts. Substantial differences existed in the passing rates of the three ethnic groups. The passing rate for White…