Has the gap in average standardized test scores between students from high- and low-income families widened, narrowed, or remained stable over the last 3 decades? The question is important both because the achievement gap is measure of how (un)equally educational opportunities are distributed in the US, and because the disparity in educational…

This report provides important perspective on the distinctive and changing features of Milwaukee's K-12 education landscape. The authors conducted two comparative analyses of Milwaukee schools. The first, a trend analysis, traces how Milwaukee schools have changed in the past decade. The second, a peer analysis, shows how Milwaukee schools compare…

Many articles and reports have reviewed, researched, and commented on international assessments from the perspective of exploring what is relevant for the United States' education systems. Researchers make claims about whether the top-performing systems have transferable practices or policies that could be applied to the United States. However,…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a stratified random measure to systematically sample the performance of three age groups in a variety of subjects so that generalizations can be made to the United States as a whole. Past NAEP mean total reading scores have indicated that, in general, girls read slightly better than boys,…

During the 1970's, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted two assessments of art abilities (1974-75 and 1978-79) and two of music skills (1971-72 and 1978-79) of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds, giving a picture of trends in performance over the course of the decade. State assessments were also conducted by Connecticut and…

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessment for within-state samples of eighth graders suggest that achievement is inversely related to school and district size indexes and to state-funding share. Higher achieving states have smaller schools and districts and smaller state shares of school expenditures. (SLD)

States are the primary policymakers in several important areas of K-12 education. Given their dominant role in educational funding and regulation, states not surprisingly have been the primary initiators of the latest wave of educational reform starting in the mid-1980s. In this paper, the authors sought to test indirectly for the effects of…

The paper summarizes a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report, "Reading, Science and Mathematic Trends: A Closer Look," in which achievement trends are compared in several subjects for 4th, 8th, and 11th grade black students, white students, low achievers, and high achievers. Findings indicate that while overall…