State education departments find themselves pressured to reduce costs while improving student performance. To do so, state education departments must measure the performance of each school district in an objective, data-informed manner. We present a benchmarking methodology and illustrate its application in New York State school districts. We…

For years California has been a leader in public education. In 1999, the state implemented some of the strongest content standards in the country through its main accountability metric, the Academic Performance Index (API). The state has also signed onto the Common Core State Standards, taking important steps to ensure its students are college-…

The 2004-2005 school year was the third year that states were required to report on the performance of students with disabilities on standards-based assessments, and the last year before states were required to test in all grades 3 through 8, and once between grades 10 and 12. This report marks the ninth in a line of National Center on Educational…