The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in subjects such as mathematics, reading, science, and writing. The results of NAEP are released as The Nation's Report Card. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S.…

Competency-based education (CBE) programs are growing in popularity as an alternative path to a postsecondary degree. Freed from the seat-time constraints of traditional higher education programs, CBE students can progress at their own pace and complete their postsecondary education having gained relevant and demonstrable skills. The CBE model has…

The challenge of funding a high quality higher education system, ensuring it has the capacity to help meet the increasing demand for high level skills in our economy and the aspirations of our students, has been an ongoing concern for successive Australian governments over many years. This paper reviews the findings and recommendations of…

Given medical education's longstanding emphasis on assessment, it seems prudent to evaluate whether our current research and development focus on testing makes sense. Since any intervention within medical education must ultimately be evaluated based upon its impact on student learning, this report seeks to provide a quantitative accounting of…

Over the past three decades, the number of developing countries participating in International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) has increased dramatically, while developing countries' usage of data from ILSAs for informing educational policy has not been fully realised. In this paper the authors argue that for ILSAs to be useful policy tools,…

Teachers and school leaders have been pressed to use data over the last few decades, and that pressure is increasing. Yet while data use has become a popular term among educators and politicians, evidence demonstrates that teachers and school leaders still struggle with making sense of data in the service of improved learning outcomes. To do this…

Champions of students with disabilities have long complained that those students are often an afterthought in state testing plans. Only after a test design is completed are educators asked to go back and adapt the questions for a student who is blind, who needs help accessing text or calculating numbers, or who must use a specialized device to…

Intellectual engagement is an absorbing, creatively energized focus resulting in a deep personal commitment to exploration, investigation, problem-solving and inquiry over a sustained period of time. In this article, the authors argue that participatory learning environments with a focus on knowledge building offer clear learning benefits to…

Assessment of human abilities and behaviors is enormously enhanced by the use of standardized assessment measures that yield norm-referenced scores. As school psychologists, they rely on quantitative findings to anchor their judgments about a child's developmental and educational functioning and to enhance our capacity to draw diagnostic…

Higher education has responded to the need for assessing its institutions, faculty, programs, courses, and students' learning over the past several decades. Across the board, educators are asked to assess students' learning with or without useful instruments or training to do so. Rubrics can serve as useful assessment instruments.…

This study provides a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the challenge of achieving international educational goals by examining the political, economic, and cultural forces working to expand education globally. I analyze the effect of domestic and global institutions, specifically democracy, global economic integration, and receipt of…

This is the Mackinac Center's fourth school report card and covers elementary and middle schools. A similar report card was published in 2013, and this edition includes two years' worth of new data. A unique characteristic of this report card is that takes into consideration the "context" of a school when assessing its performance.…

The Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) initiative aims to improve early childhood education worldwide through measurement of children's development and learning and the quality of learning environments. Led by UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, MELQO comprises an…

How might policymakers and educators utilize the work already being done as states redesign their accountability systems? The 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), brought much needed attention to the performance of traditionally underserved subgroups of students. Supported by greater flexibility under ESEA…

Holyoke Community Charter School (HCCS) provides high quality educational opportunities to students and families in a city where such opportunities are not widely available. A long waitlist, high lottery subscription, and low attrition rate are all evidence of community demand for the school. Student outcomes that surpass the district of Holyoke…