The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), in partnership with the National Assessment Governing Board and the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), created the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in 2002 to support the improvement of student achievement in the nation's large urban districts. NAEP TUDA results in mathematics…

Never before have Americans had greater access to information about school quality. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), all school districts are required to distribute annual report cards detailing student achievement levels at each of their schools. Local newspapers frequently cover the release of state test results, emphasizing…

Data collected by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has consistently shown public school students performing more poorly than those in private schools. But when a more sophisticated assessment model was applied to recent NAEP data for students in grades 4 and 8, the achievement gap narrowed considerably and reversed for…

Suggests that attempting to define an all purpose literacy that does not vary with subject matter, personal experience, and occasion is an illusory task. Presents data on standards of literacy among the Australian population that tend to refute claims about declines in literacy standards. (AEA)

Do children learn more in full-day kindergartens than half-day programs? If full-day kindergarten increases learning, are kindergartners in some schools particularly advantaged by their full-day experience? We address these questions with a nationally representative sample of over 8,000 kindergartners and 500 U.S. public schools that participated…

The organization of data at the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is undergoing a significant transition from a system designed only for national assessment purposes to one designed both for assessment and a variety of academic research interests. The advent of NAEP public-use data files opens up many possibilities for those who…

It is hypothesized that the average level of undergraduate grades has been increasing due to a change in grading practices rather than other fundamental factors. Printed sources were searched for the various reasons that have been cited and possible solutions are offered. (LBH)

Highlighting the significant reading gains of 9-year-old students and, to a lesser extent, 13-year-old students, this report presents the results of three assessments surveying the reading skills of American 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students during the 1970-71, 1974-75, and 1979-80 school years. The first chapter is introductory in nature,…

The primary focus of this report is to examine the effect that geographical location may have on the performance of students from schools from all parts of Australia who participated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2000). Approximately 5,477 students from 231…

An alternative view to a 1979 study on institutional quality done by Astin and Solomon is presented. The study indicates significant changes in rank have occurred among the 25 most selective four-year undergraduate institutions. Kuh proposes naturalistic inquiry research. A rebuttal by Astin is appended. (MLW)

This document summarizes the annual State Performance Reports for programs funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA), which have been submitted by State Education Agencies (SEAs) for the school years 1979-80 through 1987-88. These reports provide information on Local Education Agency (LEA) and State Agency…

Using the data from the High School and Beyond Transcript Survey for 1980 sophomores who graduated from high school by fall 1982, the course grade distributions are compared for the following major instruction program categories: English, mathematics, social sciences, physical sciences, life sciences, and foreign languages (academic courses);…

This report reviews the results of the Australian Surveys of Primary School Achievement given every five years from 1955 to 1970. It compares results of the tests and explains why the survey was discontinued in 1975. Subjects were approximately 1,000 fifth-grade and 1,000 seventh-grade students selected as a representative sample of Australian…

This report is based on the assessment of ICT (information and communication technology) literacy conducted in October 2005. It describes the development of a computer-based tool for assessing ICT literacy among school students and the application of that tool with a nationally representative sample of approximately 7,400 students from Years 6 and…

This report summarizes findings from two national surveys of U.S. civics achievement conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Part 1 reports on a trend assessment of approximately 56,000 students at ages 13 and 17, carried out during the 1975-76, 1981-82, and 1987-88 school years. Chapter 1 summarizes national trends, trends…