Accountability & Testing

Displaying 301-330 of 503 results
Commentary
7.22.2020
Accountability & Testing

Will NAEP wreck its reading assessment?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

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

Commentary
7.14.2020
Accountability & Testing

Dueling Florida standards reviews

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Last month, Fordham released a detailed review of Florida’s latest K–12 academic standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.

Commentary
6.17.2020
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for statewide diagnostic assessments in the fall

Trinady Maddock

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?

Podcast
6.10.2020
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction

The Education Gadfly Show: School districts failed the remote learning test

On this week’s podcast, Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, talks with Mike Petrilli and David Griffith about how well school districts handled remote learning this spring. On the Research Minute, Olivia Piontek joins Mike and David to examine how data on how academic growth affects parents’ perception of school quality.

Commentary
5.11.2020
Accountability & Testing

Denver’s ambitious reimagination of accountability

Derek Gottlieb

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.

Commentary
5.6.2020
Accountability & Testing

Shooting the test-messenger to end accountability

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

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.

Commentary
5.4.2020
Accountability & Testing

COVID-19 cancelled state assessments for the spring. Should we push for permanent reductions in testing going forward?

Cory Koedel, Eric Parsons

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.

Podcast
3.11.2020
Accountability & Testing

The Education Gadfly Show: On technocrats and culture wars

On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Checker Finn, and David Griffith discuss Mike and Checker’s new edited volume, How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines whether the nationwide rise in high school graduation rates is real, and whether high-stakes school accountability played a role.

Commentary
3.4.2020
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Back to basics for conservative education reform

Yuval Levin

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.”

Commentary
2.20.2020
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The biggest scandal in education is hiding in plain sight

Dan Weisberg

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.

Policy Brief
2.11.2020
Accountability & Testing, Advanced Education

The Role of Advanced Placement in Bridging Excellence Gaps

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew Scanlan

This report presents key findings from Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan, and published by Princeton University Press in 2019.

Commentary
2.5.2020
Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

Students learn more from teachers with high grading standards

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

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.

Report
2.4.2020
Accountability & Testing

Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement

Seth Gershenson, Ph.D.

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.

Commentary
2.3.2020
Accountability & Testing

Lessons from New Hampshire’s innovative approach to assessment and accountability

Charles Barone

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.

Commentary
1.29.2020
Accountability & Testing, Advanced Education

Enduring math woes jeopardize America’s standing in the world

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

D.C. continues to improve its teacher evaluation system

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Amid all of the hullabaloo over teacher evaluations, fewer states are now using test scores to assess the quality of their teacher workforce.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Governance

School Improvement Grants worked well—at least in these four locales

Jessica Poiner

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).

Commentary
1.8.2020
Accountability & Testing

Those that live by the scores…

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

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.

Commentary
12.6.2019
Accountability & Testing

Why China’s PISA scores are hard to believe

Tom Loveless

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.

Commentary
12.4.2019
Accountability & Testing

PISA 2018: Leaning into the economic headwinds

Michael J. Petrilli

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.

Commentary
12.4.2019
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The Houston Federation of Teachers plays the Trump card

Dale Chu

In the latest episode of what promises to be a protracted saga in the Lone Star State, the Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) recently filed a federal lawsuit to halt the state’s takeover of the Houston school district, one of the largest in the country.