Drawing on the spring 2023 American Instructional Resources Survey, the authors examine teachers' use of foundational reading activities in their instruction. These activities correspond to the four foundational reading skill domains for kindergarten-through-grade-5 students that are set forth in the Common Score of State Standards: print…

Many are concerned about the large decline in K-12 student achievement since 2019. And rightly so, given what it signals about student learning and later life outcomes. Less noted is the pre-pandemic sustained decline in student achievement growth that followed 30 years of increases. We examine the nature of achievement decline as measured by…

The significant decrease in student achievement levels following the pandemic has become a pressing national problem, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts showed some of the sharpest academic achievement declines in the country. To assist schools in recovering from the pandemic, the federal government allocated three waves of funding through its…

The purpose of educational assessments is to provide an academic check-up and to give educators, parents, students, and policymakers valuable feedback about students' academic strengths, areas that need improvement, how well they are progressing toward college and career readiness, and the effectiveness of the state's educational system. This…

The debate on the stringency of licensure exams for prospective public school teachers is on-going, including the recent controversial roll-out of the educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). We leverage the quasi-experimental setting of different adoption timing by states and analyze multiple data sources containing a national sample of…

The point at which the corners of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet is the only spot in the United States where the borders of four states converge. Beyond geography, the Four Corners states share a similar approach to charter schooling. All four states have adopted relatively freewheeling authorization policies, and charter schools…

While rural communities are not monolithic, many have seen recent shifts in demographics from historically homogenous populations to more racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse residents (e.g., Sharp & Lee, 2017; Brenner, 2016). Such shifts can occur very rapidly as new regional economic, social, or political forces emerge and are…

A recent literature provides new evidence that school resources are important for student outcomes. In this paper, we show that school finance reform-induced increases in student performance are driven by those states that had test-based accountability policies in place at the time. By incentivizing school improvement, accountability systems (such…

This article explores the relationships between (a) the quality of state science standards and student science achievement, (b) the public's belief in teaching evolution and the quality of state standards, and (c) the public's belief in teaching evolution and student science achievement. Using multiple measures, we find no evidence of a…

States' efforts to incorporate technology and engineering into K-12 science instruction appear to be bearing fruit: More than five years after states began adopting K-12 science standards that feature technology and engineering, eighth graders have notched higher scores on a national assessment of those subjects. This Policy Brief presents…

West Virginia uses multiple state assessments to measure student achievement and inform program decision-making. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 requires participation of students with disabilities in statewide assessments to be consistent with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001 and current with…

West Virginia uses multiple state assessments to measure student achievement and inform program decision making. States are required to provide guidance for appropriate participation of all students, including those with English Learners and those with disabilities, in required state assessments. The West Virginia Department of Education has…

Only 35 percent of U.S. 8th graders were identified as proficient in math by the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). According to the most recent calculations available, the United States stands at the 32nd rank in math among nations in the industrialized world. In reading, the U.S. ranks 17th in the world (see "Are U.S.…

West Virginia uses multiple state assessments to measure student achievement and inform program decision making. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) requires participation of students with disabilities in statewide assessments to be consistent with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001…

This report describes how five states -- Alabama, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee and Texas -- made exceptional progress in student achievement during the first decade of the 21st century. State leaders in these states all realized early in the decade that they had a problem they wanted to address. They established a "plan" at the state…