Through the lens of an adapted Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I have analyzed (1) the impact of the three main educational reforms of the 20th and 21st centuries on culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) and low-socioeconomic (SES) students in the core subjects up to the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) the efficacy of current classroom assessment…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

The COVID-19 pandemic shocked schools and education systems around the world, affecting educational opportunity. For many students, the pandemic resulted in the loss of knowledge, skills, and previously mastered subject matter. Additionally, many students became disengaged with school, and in some countries the dropout levels rose. These effects…

The Education and Training (ET) 2020 Working Groups (WGs), involving over 400 experts from Member States' administrations and other stakeholders, are one of the main instruments in the toolbox of the Strategic Framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020). Through mutual learning and the identification of good practices,…

In 2005, the Austrian government committed all schools to develop school policies supporting the learning of their students. One purpose of the paper is to seek evidence for the effectiveness of this governmental action. A second purpose is to suggest a special kind of multilevel model which can be applied to longitudinal data at the school level…

This memo, which is the seventh in the series, features an interview with the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Originally planned as a piece analyzing the long-term work of the school, this memo was redesigned to feature an interview highlighting how the school rapidly responded to…

For 25 years, nearly 3,000 colleges and universities have used the Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys to assess their students, strengthen the student experience, increase student success and completion, and prioritize campus planning initiatives. The surveys are valued so highly because they reveal where institutions are…

Despite monetary and educational investments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) being at record high levels, little attention has been devoted to generating a common understanding of STEM. In addition, working with business, K-12 schools, and/or institutions of higher education to establish a grassroots effort to help…

Game-based assessment (GBA) is a specific use of educational games that employs game activities to elicit evidence for educationally valuable skills and knowledge. While this approach can provide individualized and diagnostic information about students, the design and development of assessment mechanics for a GBA is a nontrivial task. In this…

Validity is the sine qua non of properties of educational assessment. While a theory of validity and a practical framework for validation has emerged over the past decades, most of the discussion has addressed familiar forms of assessment and psychological framings. Advances in digital technologies and in cognitive and social psychology have…

Since 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been providing policymakers, educators, and the public with reports on academic performance and progress of the nation's students. The assessment is given periodically in a variety of subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, science, the arts, civics, economics, geography, U.S.…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 supports states in implementing high-quality assessments by providing new assessment flexibility, funding, and a new pilot program. These new policies will support teachers in using assessments to foster deeper learning among students, including the ability to master core academic content, think…

10 million students walk into rural schools every school day, representing about 20% of the United States' public school population. More than a third of all public schools and almost three-fifths of local education agencies serve rural students. Creating coherent, scalable strategies to impact rural students can be difficult given the diffuse and…

A range of studies has identified barriers to evidence-informed practice in schools, many of which recommend school-university links as a means for removing these barriers. In England, public policy also promotes school-university partnerships, which expects these to have benefits for both schools and universities. Secondary analysis of data from…

The Stanford Educational Data Archive (SEDA) is the first data set to allow comparisons of district academic achievement and growth from Grades 3 to 8 across the United States, shining a light on the distribution of educational opportunities. This study describes a convergent validity analysis of the SEDA growth estimates in mathematics and…