Reality check: Rating students’ math performance
There are two aspects of standardized testing to which opponents tend to object: The testing itself and how the results are used.
There are two aspects of standardized testing to which opponents tend to object: The testing itself and how the results are used.
Ohio legislators recently introduced Senate Bill 358, which proposes to cancel all state testing scheduled for spring 2021. The provision calling for the cancellation of state exams would only go into effect if the state receives an assessment waiver from the U.S.
In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, a group of researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) surveyed students at that school to determine the impact of Covid-19 on their current and future plans—including their enrollment decisions, study habits, remote learning experiences, labor market participation, and more.
Remote learning did not go well in the spring. What we need, then, are concrete recommendations for how to significantly improve the remote learning experience for students, teachers, and families. Fordham’s new report, Schooling Covid-19, provides just that, with ideas culled from educators who achieved striking success in the face of the viral challenge this spring—educators from some of the nation’s leading charter school networks
Eventually we’ll learn whether our mass experiment in “remote learning” leads to durable changes in the U.S. education system, such as more students taking some of their courses online or opting out altogether from school as we know it. In the meantime, the massive digital footprint this experiment is creating can provide fresh insights into how students spend their days.
Following numerous Covid-19-related testing cancellations, over 50 percent of four-year colleges and universities have, for fall 2021, gone “test-optional,” an admission policy providing the choice to applicants of whether to submit their ACT and SAT scores.
For more than sixty years, Advanced Placement exams have been an “in person” affair. AP exams have always been administered in schools with paper test booklets, then hand-graded at massive gatherings of teachers and college professors.
Five years ago, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) launched an initiative called “Connected Education” in an effort to boost the number of students able to partake of Advanced Placement (AP) courses. More students meant more courses could be offered, but fiscal and personnel constraints prohibited them being offered in the traditional manner.
Discussions about the power of literacy are ceaseless.
The National Assessment Governing Board is in the middle of an enormous effort to revamp its framework for assessing reading, a central element of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Frameworks set forth what is to be assessed and how that’s to be done. Changing them is harder than moving a cemetery, requiring years of lead time, costing much money, and entailing endless palaver among people with divergent views of the subject. Unfortunately, in the proposed set of revisions, the bad outweighs the good by a considerable margin
Last month, Fordham released a detailed review of Florida’s latest K–12 academic standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.
Today, Michigan became the first state to formally seek federal permission to suspend standardized testing in 2021 because of learning disruptions caused by the coronavirus.
The start of a new school year is always filled with challenges. New teachers, new classes, and new expectations can be difficult for both teachers and students. But what if teachers and students haven’t been in school for six months or more? How can schools try and prepare to get back to a sense of normalcy after all of this?
Denver Public Schools (DPS) has long prided itself on being ahead of the curve when it comes to education reform. It was one of the first major urban districts in the country to negotiate a pay-for-performance system for its teachers in 2005.
This year’s holiday from federally-mandated end-of-year assessments in math and English language arts will undoubtedly embolden test haters to declare once again—and louder than ever—that we never needed those damned exams in the first place and that our schools and students are far better off without them.
With schools shuttered nationwide by the COVID-19 pandemic, states had no choice but to cancel standardized testing for the 2019–20 school year. Although certainly less pressing than many other COVID-related issues, the test stoppage is a long-run concern for states and school districts that monitor student performance using annual tests.
I proudly serve on the board of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.
This major essay comprises one of the concluding chapters of our new book, "How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools." Levin brilliantly—and soberingly—explains what conservatives have forfeited in the quest for bipartisan education reform. He contends that future efforts by conservatives to revitalize American education must emphasize “the formation of students as human beings and citizens,” including “habituation in virtue, inculcation in tradition, [and] veneration of the high and noble.”
Kids hear all the time that working hard and earning A’s and B’s in school will open opportunities for them later in life. Families rely on those grades to tell them whether their kids are getting what they need out of school to become happy, successful adults.
Fordham’s newest report, "Great Expectations," delves into high school grading practices and the impact they have on student outcomes. Turns out that higher standards benefit students of all types and in all kinds of schools. Whether black, Hispanic, white, male, or female, students learn more when taught by teachers with higher expectations. Unfortunately, American schools are gradually making it harder, not easier, for teachers to keep standards high.
One indicator of teachers’ expectations is their approach to grading—specifically, whether they subject students to more or less rigorous grading practices. Unfortunately, “grade inflation” is pervasive in U.S. high schools, as evidenced by rising GPAs even as SAT scores and other measures of academic performance have held stable or fallen. The result is that a “good” grade is no longer a clear marker of knowledge and skills. This report examines to what extent teachers’ grading standards affect student success.
Although most states are only about a year and a half into implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we’re seeing an uptick in conversations about what the next generation of school assessment and accountability systems should look like. Those discussions should begin with what we’ve learned since the passage of ESSA in 2015.
Considerable research suggests that “math skills better predict [individuals’] future earnings and other economic outcomes than other skills learned in high school,” report Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann.
Amid all of the hullabaloo over teacher evaluations, fewer states are now using test scores to assess the quality of their teacher workforce.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 marked a massive federal investment in our schools, with more than $100 billion to shore up school systems in the face of the Great Recession. Along with that largesse came two grant programs meant to encourage reform with all of those resources: Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants (SIGs).
We are endlessly tempted—and strongly encouraged by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher—to infer policy guidance from PISA results. If a country’s score goes up, maybe other countries should emulate its education practices and priorities, as they surely must be what’s causing the improvement.
The 2018 PISA results are out. Generally, countries scored within an expected range given their past records. Except one. The scores are astonishing for B-S-J-Z, an acronym for the four Chinese provinces that participated: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Several candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary have criticized the inequities created by school funding formula
The latest PISA results largely mirror the findings from NAEP: America’s scores are mostly flat, with some widening of gaps between our high and low performers in reading and math because the higher achieving students are making progress while their less accomplished peers aren’t. America’s standing also improved because some of the highest-achieving countries lost ground. Here are five big takeaways.