‘Nation’s Report Card’: Two Decades of Growth Wiped Out by Two Years of Pandemic

Posted on October 6, 2022October 2, 2022 by coreeducation

Recently in The 74, Kevin Mahnken looked at long-term scores from NAEP that show unprecedented score declines for nine-year-olds in math and generational literacy loss. Two decades of growth for American students in reading and math were wiped away by just two years of pandemic-disrupted learning, according to national test scores. Dismal releases from the Read more about ‘Nation’s Report Card’: Two Decades of Growth Wiped Out by Two Years of Pandemic[…]

The state of learning loss: 7 takeaways from the latest data

Posted on August 16, 2022July 31, 2022 by coreeducation

Writing for Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum explores the takeaways from the latest data on pandemic learning loss. Excerpts from the piece appear below: In the last year, students in younger grades have recovered between 15% and 35% of the learning they had lost, according to data released by the testing group NWEA. That’s the good news, Read more about The state of learning loss: 7 takeaways from the latest data[…]

Harvard Economist Offers Gloomy Forecast on Reversing Pandemic Learning Loss

Posted on July 28, 2022July 26, 2022 by coreeducation

Along with collaborators from Dartmouth, the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research, and the nonprofit testing group NWEA, Harvard economist Tom Kane released a paper this May incorporating pre- and post-pandemic testing data from over 2 million students in 49 states. Its conclusion: Remote instruction was a “primary driver of widening achievement gaps” Read more about Harvard Economist Offers Gloomy Forecast on Reversing Pandemic Learning Loss[…]

Learning More: Why did U.S. schools make so much progress in the 1990s and early 2000s?

Posted on May 24, 2022May 22, 2022 by coreeducation

In the New York Times newsletter, David Leonhardt works against bad-news bias and covers a positive and mostly overlooked trend in American education: the educational progress of the 1990s and early 2000s. Excerpts of the piece appear below: For years, you’ve probably been hearing that our schools are in crisis. And K-12 education in the Read more about Learning More: Why did U.S. schools make so much progress in the 1990s and early 2000s?[…]

Big Data on Campus

Posted on March 9, 2022March 7, 2022 by coreeducation

Recently, EducationNext released research on the predictive analytics that colleges and universities are using to identify at-risk students who may benefit from additional support. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Colleges and universities are facing mounting pressure to raise completion rates and have embraced predictive analytics to identify which students are at risk of failing Read more about Big Data on Campus[…]

Widescale Study Finds More Students Started the School Year Behind

Posted on January 11, 2022January 1, 2022 by coreeducation

Fewer elementary and middle school students started the 2021 school year on grade level for reading and mathematics, according to a new report released by Curriculum Associates. The report, Understanding Student Learning: Insights from Fall 2021, analyzes data gathered from the edtech company’s i-Ready Assessment tool on reading and mathematics learning from three million Grades Read more about Widescale Study Finds More Students Started the School Year Behind[…]

Predicting Students’ Academic Trajectory from Third Grade Test Scores

Posted on March 2, 2021February 27, 2021 by coreeducation

Dan Goldhaber, Malcolm Wolff, and Timothy Daly recently published a CALDER working paper titled, “Assessing the Accuracy of Elementary School Test Scores as Predictors of Students’ High School Outcomes.” They employ datasets from Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington to track sixteen cohorts of students from third grade through high school, enabling them to investigate how Read more about Predicting Students’ Academic Trajectory from Third Grade Test Scores[…]

For Student-Centered Learning to Work, Schools Must Rethink How to Assess Learning and Award Credit

Posted on May 14, 2020May 11, 2020 by coreeducation

Thomas Arnett, writing for the Christensen Institute, recently reflected on the necessity of mastery-based grading to facilitate personalized learning. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Student-centered learning offers enormous potential to better meet each students’ individual learning needs. By varying the time, place, path, and pace of learning, student-centered learning helps those who struggle, those Read more about For Student-Centered Learning to Work, Schools Must Rethink How to Assess Learning and Award Credit[…]

Frameworks for Evaluating Cognitive Complexity in Assessments

Posted on October 17, 2019October 11, 2019 by coreeducation

Achieve is excited to release three new frameworks – one each for mathematics, reading, and science – for the educator community working on high-quality student assessments. The frameworks, which were developed by content experts and practitioners, can be used to evaluate the cognitive complexity of assessment items (the tasks students must complete on a test) Read more about Frameworks for Evaluating Cognitive Complexity in Assessments[…]

What Do Teachers Know About The Science of Learning?

Posted on October 10, 2019October 6, 2019 by coreeducation

Scientists know a lot about effective learning and teaching. In the past several decades, cognitive psychologists and other learning researchers have performed thousands of studies on effective learning and teaching practices. In some cases, research findings have gone against conventional wisdom or common practice. For example, varied practice (in terms of the variety of problems Read more about What Do Teachers Know About The Science of Learning?[…]

The New Testing Landscape: How State Assessments Are Changing Under ESSA

Posted on September 24, 2019September 18, 2019 by coreeducation

State testing systems are in transition. Buffeted by anti-testing sentiment on the left and right, budget battles, and renewed debates over the role that testing plays, the recent, unprecedented push for states to collaborate on high-quality, standards-aligned assessments has given way to an increasingly fragmented marketplace. A new report from FutureEd Senior Fellow Lynn Olson Read more about The New Testing Landscape: How State Assessments Are Changing Under ESSA[…]

Assessment HQ launches State Assessment Site

Posted on August 28, 2019August 26, 2019 by coreeducation

The nonprofit Collaborative for Student Success has launched Assessment HQ, a unique online platform that takes the guesswork and risk of misinformation out of understanding state annual assessments by providing transparency on student proficiency and state testing decisions. Assessment HQ highlights state-reported student performance results in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) by student demographics Read more about Assessment HQ launches State Assessment Site[…]

The Research Base for Formative Assessment

Posted on August 1, 2018July 30, 2018 by coreeducation

Mary Ryerse and Susan Brookhart, writing for Getting Smart, recently analyzed the research base for formative assessment. Excerpts from their piece appear below: The original research base on formative assessment is most typically traced back to the 1998 publication Assessment and Classroom Learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998), the first widely cited review of literature on Read more about The Research Base for Formative Assessment[…]

What Predicts College Completion? High School GPA Beats SAT Score

Posted on July 12, 2018March 3, 2020 by coreeducation

Preston Cooper, writing for Forbes, has reviewed a new article by Matthew Chingos of the Urban Institute that finds high school GPA to be a better predictor of college completion than SAT score. For excerpts from the article, see below: For obvious reasons, students who exhibit better academic preparation in high school are more likely Read more about What Predicts College Completion? High School GPA Beats SAT Score[…]

Don’t Rate Teaching Schools Based on Student Test Scores, Study Warns

Posted on July 3, 2018June 24, 2018 by coreeducation

In recent years, public officials have sought to determine the quality of our nation’s teacher preparation programs, both the traditional programs at colleges and universities, as well as alternative preparation programs like Teach for America. One proposed way to do this is to track graduates into the classrooms where they become teachers to see how Read more about Don’t Rate Teaching Schools Based on Student Test Scores, Study Warns[…]

Achieve: Do not use SAT or ACT as state summative assessment

Posted on June 12, 2018June 10, 2018 by coreeducation

Achieve released a new brief warning against the use of ACT or SAT exams as the summative high school assessment for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Achieve highlighted three reviews of these tests, looking at their alignment to states’ college- and career-ready academic standards and how using the tests for accountability would impact students, Read more about Achieve: Do not use SAT or ACT as state summative assessment[…]