Why end-of-course exams are being replaced by the ACT and SAT, and how to reverse that
In the last month, two reports have renewed questions about the current direction of states’ high school assessments.
In the last month, two reports have renewed questions about the current direction of states’ high school assessments.
Much of the initial response to Robert’s new book, "How The Other Half Learns," has focused on the winnowing effects of Success Academy’s enrollment process, which ensures that the children of only the most committed parents enroll and persist. But that’s just the start of the story. You have to look at what parent buy-in actually buys: a school culture that drives student achievement, and which can only be achieved when parents are active participants, not unwilling conscripts.
What if you were told that elementary schools in the United States are teaching children to be poor readers?
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Tom Wolf garnered headlines recently when he announced vague plans for taking funding away from the state’s public charter schools.
Very little previous research has looked at end-of-course exams. Our new study on their relationship to student outcomes helps remedy that. We learned much that’s worth knowing and sharing. Probably most important: EOCs, properly deployed, have positive academic benefits and do so without causing kids to drop out or graduation rates to falter.
Editor’s note: This is the final post in a series looking at whether and how the nation’s schools have improved over the past quarter-century or so (see the others here,
A dozen long years ago, when people were just beginning to take serious stock of what good and not-so-good was emerging from 2002’s enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), we at Fordham, in league with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), issued a 200-plus page analysis of the “proficiency” standards that states had by then been required to set and test for.
A new study from Georgetown University reaffirmed an uncomfortable but familiar finding: Socioeconomic status has a significant effect on students’ long-term outcomes, regardless of their academic performance in kindergarten or the quality of the schools they attend in K–12.
This report provides a rich longitudinal look at state policies related to end-of-course exams over the past twenty years and the effects of administering EOCs in different subjects on high school graduation rates and college entrance exam scores.
The past quarter-century has included dramatic progress of America’s lowest-performing students, many of whom are also low-income and children of color. But how’s the vast middle class doing? It’s a mixed bag: They still don’t read very well, but their math skills have improved a bit and they are graduating from college in higher and higher numbers.
On this week’s podcast, Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and a research associate professor at Georgetown University, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to remind schools to prepare for a rainy day, which is likely coming soon. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines students’ reading habits, and which books are most popular from K to 12.
On this week’s podcast, Neal McCluskey, director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the appropriate role of for-profit entities in education. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines the effects tracking, instructional practices, and text complexity have on students who are struggling with reading in middle school.
By Jeremy Noonan
On this week’s podcast, Andrew Ujifusa, an assistant editor for Education Week, and one-half of the Politics K–12 team, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to explain why we wonks shouldn’t completely ignore Washington in the coming year. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern counts down the five most influential education studies of 2018.
By Tim Daly and Elliot Regenstein
By Dan Goldhaber and Umut Özek
Credit recovery, or the practice of enabling high school students to retrieve credits from courses that they either failed or failed to complete, is at the crossroads of two big trends in education: the desire to move toward “competency based” education and a push to dramatically boost graduation rates.
By Laura Slover and Bonnie Hain
By Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli
Eight years ago, we compared states’ English language arts (ELA) and mathematics standards to what were then the newly-minted Common Core State Standards. That report found that the Common Core was clearer and more rigorous than the ELA standards in thirty-seven states and stronger than the math standards in thirty-nine states.
Weighted student funding, also known as student-based budgeting (SBB), is a funding mechanism that aims to allocate school resources more equitably.
Since 2010, when most states adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has been committed to monitoring their implementation.
When state report cards are released this fall, it will be the first time that overall letter grades are assigned to districts and schools.
An increasing number of headline-grabbing graduation scandals have renewed the public’s interest in how students earn a high school diploma.
The state board of education voted today to recommend that the General Assembly extend previously-relaxed graduation requirements for the class of 2018 to the classes of 2019 and 2020.
In case you missed it during the hustle and bustle of the holidays, Ohio recently announced how students can earn a new endorsement on their high school diplomas.