Displaying 61-82 of 82 results
Commentary
5.12.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and choices for NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

NAEP is by far the country’s most important source of information on student achievement, achievement gaps and so much more, even though it’s invisible to most Americans. Yet NAEP is far from perfect—and could do so much more than it does. It’s time to wrestle with its challenges, shortcomings, and possible future scenarios.

Book
5.10.2022
Accountability & Testing

Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

How do we see whether achievement gaps between groups of students are widening or narrowing? How can we tell whether eighth graders in Missouri do better or worse in math than their peers in Michigan and Maine? We wouldn’t know these things or much else about K–12 achievement in America without a little-known but vital test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. “NAEP” or the “Nation’s Report Card.” Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP, authored by veteran education participant/analyst Chester E. Finn, Jr., examines the history of NAEP, the issues and challenges that it faces today, and ways to strengthen and modernize it for the future.

Checker editorial 4-28-22 image
Commentary
4.28.2022
Accountability & Testing

The little-known test that matters the most

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

How do we know whether kids in Pennsylvania are better or worse readers at the end of middle school than their peers in Colorado? We wouldn’t know that or much else without a test that may have escaped your notice altogether, unless you’re some sort of education-obsessed policy maker or policy wonk like me. I’m talking about the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Checker editorial 4-28-22 image
MP AN blog 4-14-22 image
Commentary
4.14.2022
Accountability & Testing

A better way to measure student absenteeism

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

For many parents and teachers, the Covid experience has confirmed at least two pieces of common sense: It’s hard for kids to learn if they’re not in school, and those who are in school tend to learn more.

MP AN blog 4-14-22 image
Report
4.13.2022
Accountability & Testing

Imperfect Attendance: Toward a fairer measure of student absenteeism

Jing Liu, Ph.D.

The need to understand how schools can improve student attendance has never been greater. This study breaks new ground by examining high schools’ contributions to attendance—that is, their “attendance value-added.”

Commentary
4.7.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Denver doesn’t spell doom for portfolio-style reform

Paul T. Hill

Last week, Chester Finn used a recent vote of Denver’s anti-reform school board to make three points: first, that the “portfolio” reform there—based on school autonomy, family choice, and chartering out schools where kids aren’t learning—is finished; second, that Denver’s reversal predicts doom elsewhere for complex reform initiatives meant to transform the ways whole public systems operate; an

Commentary
4.7.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

More reform lessons from Denver

Susan Miller, Tom Coyne

After living through the transformation of K–12 education in Alberta, Canada, we moved from Calgary to Colorado in 2010. Since then, we have watched the Denver Public Schools story unfold from next door in Jefferson County.

Commentary
3.24.2022
Accountability & Testing, Governance

Lively days for NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Those who pay attention to the “Nation’s Report Card” tend to take it for granted. In truth, most people heed it not at all.

Commentary
3.18.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Should we be worried about rising inflation?

Seth Gershenson

Inflation is up, and no, I’m not talking about gas prices. I’m talking about some troubling trends observed among the 2019 graduating class of high school students in the recently released 2019 NAEP High School Transcript Study.

Commentary
3.17.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

San Francisco’s detracking experiment

Tom Loveless

Editor's note: This post was originally published on tomloveless.com.

Commentary
3.10.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Keep fighting for selective high schools

Brandon L. Wright

In cities across the country, selective high schools are facing increasing pressure to change their admissions policies to make their incoming student populations more socioeconomically and racially diverse. Closing these gaps is a laudable and important goal. But the most common strategies for accomplishing it are racially discriminatory, misguided, and ineffective.

Commentary
2.3.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Did public education have it coming?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

In many ways, the educational failures of the past several years—including those caused by the pandemic—were far worse than they needed to be because of long-standing characteristics of American public education. Namely, the tendency to place employees’ interests first, the disempowering of parents, and the failure to innovate.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A century of school reform, through the eyes of Larry Cuban

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Confessions of a School Reformer, a new book by emeritus Stanford education professor Larry Cuban, still going strong at eighty-eight, combines personal memoir with a history and analysis of U.S.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for starting NAEP in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

Way back in the late 1960s, when federal officials and eminent psychologists were first designing the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they probably never contemplated testing students younger than nine. After all, the technology for mass testing at the time—bubble sheets and No.