External Influences - Standards

This article explore the relationship between per pupil spending and learning, particularly in developing countries that spend much lower levels in education than do OECD countries. Their findings suggest that, when education systems spend above $8,000, the association between student learning and per student spending is no longer statistically significant. Therefore, they find a threshold effect after this level of resources is met, indicating a declining relationship between resources and achievement at high levels of expenditure (consistent with other recent literature). There is a positive relationship between student learning and per pupil expenditure among the low-spending countries (below $8,000 per student), but a flat relationship among high-spending countries. 

Standardized tests play a critical role in tracking and comparing K-12 student progress across time, student demographics, and governing bodies (states, cities, districts). One methodology is to benchmark the each state’s proficiency standards against those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test.  This study does just that.  Using NAEP as a common yardstick allows a comparison of different state assessments. The results confirm the wide variation in proficiency standards across states.  It also documents that the significant majority of states have standards are much lower than those established by the NAEP.

This research took a more historical look, examining NAEP data over the past decade to find connection between standard-based reform and student outcomes. The findings suggest that there is clear evidence that standards-based reform works, particularly when it comes to the needs of low-income students. The Common Core is the most recent major policy initiative to advance the broader standards-based reform approach. States should continue their commitment to the Common Core’s full implementation and aligned assessments.

C-SAIL was established in July 2015 as a resource on the implementation and effects of college and career readiness standards. The Center is funded through a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

TIMSS is designed to align broadly with mathematics and science curricula in the participating countries. This report focuses on the performance of U.S. students relative to that of their peers in other countries in 2007, and on changes in mathematics and science achievement since 1995. This report also describes additional details about the achievement of U.S. student subpopulations. All differences described in this report are statistically significant at the .05 level. No statistical adjustments to account for multiple comparisons were used.

Noting that the evidence of families' influence on their children's school achievement is consistent, positive, and convincing, this report examines research on parent and community involvement and its impact on student achievement.

Like proponents of standards-based reform in other states, Washington State policy and business leaders assumed that the establishment of a performance-based system would change the behavior of teachers, parents, school administrators, and students.

In the last 20 years, international surveys assessing learning in reading, mathematics and science have been headline news because they put countries in rank order according to performance. The three most well known surveys are TIMSS, PISA and PIRLS. The survey offer information about international performances for the use of others in order to drive up education standards everywhere. They also emphasise that their aim is to facilitate dissemination of ideas on which features of education systems lead to the best performances.

The purpose of the National Standards for Quality (NSQ) revision initiative is to provide the K-12 online and blended learning community with an updated set of openly licensed standards to help evaluate and improve online courses, online teaching and online programs.

The authors summarize 35 years of empirical research on goal-setting theory. They describe the core findings of the theory, the mechanisms by which goals operate, moderators of goal effects, the relation of goals and satisfaction, and the role of goals as mediators of incentives. The external validity and practical significance of goal-setting theory are explained, and new directions in goal-setting research are discussed.

This report offers recommendations for the implementation of standards-based reform and outlines possible consequences for policy changes. It summarizes both the vision and intentions of standards-based reform and the arguments of its critics.

This article describe about the drop down of SAT score in 2016. 

This report attempts to summarize the most important and interesting trends emerging from TIMSS across the past two decades. The report is organized from macro to micro perspectives. The first chapter provides an overview of student achievement worldwide. The second and third chapters explore curriculum and instruction. The fourth and fifth chapters narrow the focus to two topics of interest among policymakers. 

This paper enters debate about how U.S. schools might address long-standing disparities in educational and economic opportunities while improving the educational outcomes for all students. with a vision and an argument for realizing that vision, based on lessons learned from 60 years of education research and reform efforts. The central points covered draw on a much more extensive treatment of these issues published in 2015. The aim is to spark fruitful discussion among educators, policymakers, and researchers.

US President Obama has launched one of the world’s most ambitious education reform agendas. Under the heading “Race to the Top”, this agenda encourages US states to adopt internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace: recruit, develop, reward, and retain effective teachers and principals. 

American teachers are feeling enormous pressure these days to raise their students' scores
on high-stakes tests. As a consequence, some teachers are providing classroom instruction
that incorporates, as practice activities, the actual items on the high-stakes tests.

This articles suggest policymakers to focus less on the international test and more on how states compare to each other when trying to improve schools. This article also shows how it's not worthwhile to compare school in countries where the conditions are different. 

This article show the evidence for a race gap on the SAT math score and some big issues at stake including: the value of the SAT itself; the case for broader policies to take into account socioeconomic background in college admissions; the obsession with four-year college degrees; and the danger of college as a “bottleneck” in the American opportunity structure. 

This table allows you to compare a student’s SAT® scores with the performance of other 2012 college-bound seniors who took the test some time in high school. Please keep in mind that relationships between test scores and other factors are complex and interdependent. Other factors do not directly affect test performance; rather, they are associated with educational experiences both on tests and in schoolwork.

Is it time to kill annual testing? An Education Week article.

School board members and their attitudes do matter—so it’s important to take seriously who gets elected and how. Even as we strive to bring about structural reforms and governance innovations in the education system, we should also be working to get better results from the structures in place in most communities today.

The purpose of this document is to provide background information that will be useful in interpreting the 2007 results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) by comparing its design, features, framework, and items with those of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress and another international assessment in which the United States participates, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The report found, because there are differences in the features, frameworks and items of the national and international assessments, direct comparisons among the assessments are not useful. Rather the results from different studies should be thought of as different lenses through which to view and better understand U.S. student performance.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.

This article provide charts, graphs, maps, and visualizations of all feature data that Education Week released in 2017 and convey some big takeaways about U.S. schools, students, and teachers in 2017.

This article show different approach that researcher took to answer questions on social gradient in education between the countries. Comparing some of these results highlights weak service delivery in many developing countries. Even where resources may be similar, social gradients are steep in some, indicating much worse educational outcomes for the poor. And public resources are often extremely poorly converted into learning. The differential ability of schools and school systems to convert resources into learning outcomes remains a major impediment to improving educational outcomes, and indeed life chances, for the poor.

The chapters in this book deal with areas of expertise that most students will need. For example, self-determination skills, functional academics, transportation, home and community living, as well as work preparation and socialization.

The Council’s mission is to promote the cause of urban schools and to advocate for inner-city students through legislation, research and media relations.