Education Outcomes

This analysis examines the performance of the U.S. K–12 education system over time, in comparison to other nations, and at different levels of organizational structure: states, school districts, and schools. It also reviews performance in terms of four societal outcomes: effectiveness, equity, efficiency, and participation.

Summative assessment is an appraisal of learning at the end of an instructional unit or at a specific point in time. It compares student knowledge or skills against standards or benchmarks. Summative assessment includes midterm exams, final project, papers, teacher-designed tests, standardized tests, and high-stakes tests. 

This book is compiled from the proceedings of the sixth summit entitled “Performance Feedback: Using Data to Improve Educator Performance.” The 2011 summit topic was selected to help answer the following question: What basic practice has the potential for the greatest impact on changing the behavior of students, teachers, and school administrative personnel?

This review examines 40 years of data for 4th, 8th, 12th grade math proficiency scores in the United States.

This review examines 40 years of data for 4th, 8th, 12th grade reading proficiency scores in the United States.

This review examines at 17 years of data on 4th grade reading proficiency in the United States.

This review examines 17 years of data on 8th grade reading proficiency in the United States.

This review examines student reading performance since 1971 to look for evidence of school reform's impact.

This review looks at trends in reading performance for a twenty year period.

This review looks at trends in mathematics performance for a twenty year period.

This paper examines the history, impact, and future of school reform in the context of empirical data, scientific research, and policy initiatives.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.

One of the most critical issues facing K-12 education is the impact that poverty has on school performance.  This study first examines school performance using traditional metrics for school poverty levels (percent of student body that qualify for free and reduced lunch: FRL) and school performance (school achievement based on the aggregate test scores of its student body).  The results support prior research documenting the negative relationship between the level of poverty in a school and student achievement (the higher the poverty the lower the achievement).  However, when replacing the student achievement metric with a student growth metric, the relationship is significantly different.

This report breaks out key steps in the school identification and improvement process, focusing on (1) a diagnosis of school needs; (2) a plan to improve schools; and (3) evidenced-based interventions that work.

In current study, through a meta-analysis of 78 studies, it is aimed to determine the overall effect size for testing at different frequency levels and to find out other study characteristics, related to the effectiveness of frequent testing. 

There is also little or no evidence for the claim that teachers will be more motivated to improve student learning if teachers are evaluated or monetarily rewarded for student test score gains. 

This research finds starting school later is associated with reduced suspensions and higher course grades. These studies suggest disadvantaged students may especially benefit from delayed starting times.

Districts usually implement principal performance pay systems at the urging of state policymakers or as part of grant-funded efforts. This briefing summarizes research about the efficacy of district approaches, describes state laws in place and offers three considerations for state policymaking.

This paper uses student-level data from a statewide community college system to examine the validity of placement tests and high school information in predicting course grades and college performance.

This study examines the detrimental impact of principal turnover, including lower teacher retention and lower student achievement. Particularly hard hit are high poverty schools, which often lose principals at a higher rate as they transition to lower poverty, higher student achievement schools.

This report provides a practical “management guide,” for an evidence-based key indicator data decision system for school districts and schools.

Solid evidence supports claims that motivational programs can increase the quality and quantity of performance from 20 to 40 percent. Motivation can solve three types of performance problems: 1) people are refusing to change; and/or 2) allowing themselves to be distracted and not persist at a key task; and/or 3) treating a novel task as familiar, making mistakes but not investing mental effort and taking responsibility because of overconfidence. After describing a number of general strategies for fostering individual motivation, the article focuses on the unique motivational issues faced by teams and how to overcome them.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the role of formal teacher evaluation, the research that examines the practice, and its impact on student outcomes.

This report provides ten actions to get data into the right hands of educators.

a mini-series from School Psychology Review about Academic Enablers to Improve Student Performance: Considerations for Research and Practice. 

This meta-analysis reviews 63 studies on the relationship between conditions of massed practice and spaced practice with respect to task performance, which yields an overall mean weighted effect size of 0.46.

This study evaluated the impact of public feedback in RtI team meetings on the quality of implementation.  Feedback improved poor implementation and maintained high level implementation.

This chartbook—which is a companion piece to a chartbook on child health released in October 2008—provides state and national data on an important and widely-used measure of health: self-reported adult health status.

A disproportionate reliance on SAT scores in college admissions has generated a growing number and volume of complaints. Some applicants, especially members of underrepresented minority groups, believe that the test is culturally biased. Other critics argue that high school GPA and results on SAT subject tests are better than scores on the SAT reasoning test at predicting college success, as measured by grades in college and college graduation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between school climate and children's academic and social development in the early elementary school years, controlling for maternal education and family resources, and to determine whether factors underlying school climate influence those outcomes. 

This systematic review synthesizes the findings from 30 studies thatcompared the performance of students at schools using single‐trackyear‐round calendars to the performance of students at schools usinga traditional calendar.

This report focuses on the performance of U.S. students2 in the major subject area of reading literacy by presenting results from a combined reading literacy scale and three reading literacy subscales: access and retrieve, integrate and interpret, and reflect and evaluate

The purposes of this study were to examine how well 3 measures, representing 3 points on a traditional-alternative mathematics assessment continuum, interrelated and discriminated students achieving above, at, and below grade level and to explore effects of cooperative testing for the most innovative measure (performance assessment).

Although recent data indicate that the learning losses this fall, compared with the same period last year, have not been as dire as predicted, those results likely mask high numbers of missing kids — children who lack technology for online learning or whose parents are unable to supervise their remote schooling.

This report: (1) investigates the declining state of the educational system in America, as measured by high school student performance in the United States and other countries; (2) identifies specific problem areas; and (3) offers multiple recommendations for improvement

This study examines that assumption, asking the question:  how well do student grades correlate with test scores, school demographics, student performance on college entrance exams, and the historical difficulty for getting A’s (is it easier or harder to get A’s).  The study found that students who scored higher on end-of-course (EOC) examinations also had higher grades.  However having high grades did not correlate with doing well on the examination.  

Four second-grade boys, 2 rated by their classroom teacher as below average and 2 as above average in basic language skills, participated in a 16-week spelling investigation. 

The author summarizes four new strands in agency theory that help him think about incentives in real organizations. The author concludes by suggesting two avenues for further progress in agency theory: better integration with organizational economics, and cross-pollination with other fields that study organizations. 

This paper report on work estimating the stability of value-added estimates of teacher effects, an important area of investigation given that new workforce policies implicitly assume that effectiveness is a stable attribute within teachers.

In this paper we examine the mobility of early-career teachers of varying quality, measured using value-added estimates of teacher performance.

Alternate assessment and instruction is a key issue for individuals with disabilities. This report presents an analysis, by assessment system component, to identify where and when flexibility can be built into assessments.

This paper provide some recommendations to increase the pool of potential teachers, make it tougher to award tenure to those who perform least well, and reward effective teachers who are willing to work in schools serving large numbers of low-income, disadvantaged children. 

This study examines whether the results of standardized tests are distorted when rewards and sanctions are attached to them.

Examines evidence supporting performance-based instructional models. Performance-based instructional models posit change in students' classroom behavior and academic achievement to be a function of changes in instruction. 

This paper describe a few promising assessment technologies tat allow us to capture more direct, repeated, and contextually based measures of student learning, and propose an improvement-oriented approach to teaching and learning. 

this article identifies multiple conceptual approaches for capturing the contributions of principals to student test score growth, develops empirical models to reflect these approaches, examines the properties of these models, and compares the results of the models empirically using data from a large urban school district.

The purpose of the current study was to test theoretically derived hypotheses regarding the relationships between team efficacy, potency, and performance and to examine the moderating effects of level of analysis and interdependence on observed relationships.

This report is the first chapter of the 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education. This section explore trends in math, reading, and civics performance from the late 1990s through the most recent year in which results are available (2017 in math and reading, 2014 in civics). It show trends in nationwide performance and in test score gaps by race (white-black), ethnicity (white-Hispanic), and family income (based on eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch [FRL]). In doing so, this report examine test score trajectories from the beginning to the end of the No Child Left Behind era (NCLB). The 2017 results, in particular, reflect a boundary in the timeline of education policy, demarcating the end of NCLB and the beginning of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The number of college graduates has steadily increased in the past decade, especially among those earning bachelor’s degrees. Graduation rates have also increased overall, especially at public, 4-year institutions; college graduation statistics suggest greater student success at these institutions.

The authors analysis of special education placement rates, a frequently identified area of concern, does not show any responsiveness to the introduction of accountability systems.

The purpose of this study is to compare different statistical and methodological approaches to standard setting and determining cut scores using R- CBM and performance on high-stakes tests

The authors highlight an under-appreciated weakness of that approach-he imprecision of school-level test score means -- and propose a method for a better discerning signal from noise in annual school report cards. 

This study used a random-assignment experiment in Los Angeles Unified School District to evaluate various non-experimental methods for estimating teacher effects on student test scores. Having estimated teacher effects during a pre-experimental period, the authors used these estimates to predict student achievement following random assignment of teachers to classrooms.

his overview looks at the best available evidence on chronic student absenteeism in the context of the scale, the impact, impact multipliers, and interventions. 

This analysis examines the performance of the U.S. K–12 education system over time, in comparison to other nations, and at different levels of organizational structure: states, school districts, and schools. It also reviews performance in terms of four societal outcomes: effectiveness, equity, efficiency, and participation.

This report analyzes the public reporting of state assessment results for students with disabilities

This study examined the extent to which the reading instructional practices learned by a
cohort of teachers who participated in an intensive, yearlong professional development
experience during the 1994-1995 school year have been sustained and modified over time.

The authors examined the effects of task-sequencing variables on the academic performance of an 8-year-old severe stroke victim. Within a multiple baseline design, previously acquired (maintenance) task trials were systematically interspersed at designated points in treatment among new (acquisition) task trials.

In 1990, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania implemented a statewide instructional support team (IST) process to provide prereferral assessment and intervention for at-risk students in 500 school districts. The current study examined the academic performance of students affected by this process as contrasted with other at-risk students who did not have access to it.

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher evaluation scores that are derived from an observation tool, adapted from Danielson's Framework for Teaching, designed to assess 22 teaching components from four teaching domains.

It is argued that there is a need to rethink the criteria by which the quality of educational assessments are judged and a set of criteria that are sensitive to some of the expectations for performancebased assessments are proposed

This meta-analysis research cover all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated in search of empirical evidence. The authors conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued.

This monograph attempts to synthesize and interpret the extant research from the last 4 decades on the impact of schooling on students' academic achievement.

This is a study of classroom management on student engagement and achievement.

Effects of two curricular and materials modifications on the on-task behavior and correct academic responding of three elementary-aged students identified with emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) were evaluated in two separate studies. 

To investigate the relationship between students’ achievement and various contextual factors, NAEP collects information from teachers about their background, education, and training.

How did U.S students perform on ht most recent assessment? 

This non-technical brochure provides introductory information on the development, administration, scoring, and reporting of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The brochure also provides information about the online resources available on the NAEP website.

The Data Explorer for the Long-Term Trend assessments provides national mathematics and reading results dating from the 1970s.

Percentages of students meeting state proficiency standards and performing at or above the NAEP Proficient level, by subject, grade, and state: 2009

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a national assessment of what America's students know in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history.

Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2011 ofers a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators that relect a consensus among professionals on how to measure the current state of education internationally.

A report prepared by the board that governs the National Assessment of Educational Progress cautions that measuring an achievement gap does not come down to a single statistic.

This volume of PISA 2009 results looks at the progress countries have made in raising student performance and improving equity in the distribution of learning opportunities. 

Volume II of PISA's 2009 results looks at how successful education systems moderate the impact of social background and immigrant status on student and school performance. 

This first volume of PISA 2009 survey results provides comparable data on 15-year-olds' performance on reading, mathematics, and science across 65 countries. 

Much of teaching is about helping students master new knowledge and skills and then helping students not to forget what they have learned. The recommendations in this practice guide are intended to provide teachers with specific strategies for organizing both instruction and students' studying of material to facilitate learning and remembering information, and to enable students to use what they have learned in new situations.

The education reform movement of the past two decades has focused on raising academic
standards. Some standards advocates attach a testing mechanism to gauge the extent to
which high standards are actually accomplished, whereas some critics accuse the push for
standards and testing of impeding reform and perpetuating inequality.

This study investigated the effectiveness and efficiency of a 4-second time delay instructional package and language of instruction with regard to the percentage correct of English sight words and incidental information by 4 Puerto Rican middle school students with mental retardation.

This module will not focus on the empirical challenges to developing measures of principal effectiveness and their accompanying reward systems, but rather will focus on what is known and will provide guidance on those issues upon which there is agreement.

Scores went up in all grades and subjects this year on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). But how much depends on how you look at them. 

This study analyzed the magnitude of experimental intervention outcomes as a function of violations in internal and external validity for studies that included students with learning disabilities. 

This paper examines efforts in the State of Wisconsin to improve test scores.

The present study explores conflict management as a team phenomenon in schools. The author examined how the contextual variables (task interdependence, goal interdependence) are related to team conflict management style (integrating vs. dominating) and school team effectiveness (team performance).

Introduces a new analytic strategy for comparing the cognitive profiles of children developing reading skills at different rates: a regression-based logic analogous to the reading-level match design, but without some of the methodological problems of that design.

Summative assessment is an appraisal of learning at the end of an instructional unit or at a specific point in time. It compares student knowledge or skills against standards or benchmarks. Summative assessment includes midterm exams, final project, papers, teacher-designed tests, standardized tests, and high-stakes tests. 

In this article, the authors address the following questions: How does the level of on-site technical assistance affect student outcomes? Do teachers’ fidelity of treatment implementation and their perceptions of school climate mediate effects on student performance?

This paper offers evidence that evaluation can shift the teacher effectiveness distribution through a different mechanism: by improving teacher skill, effort, or both in ways that persist long-run.

To examine a response to treatment model as a means for identifying students with reading/learning disabilities, 45 second-grade students at risk for reading problems were provided daily supplemental reading instruction and assessed after 10 weeks to determine if they met a prior criteria for exit.

This report describes the first of a series of researches that will attempt to characterize the performance of New Jersey's public school system.

A meta-analysis of the data from empirical investigations of diversity in work groups was used to examine the impact of two types of diversity attributes, highly job-related and less-related, on work group cohesion and performance. 

The organization promotes well-informed decision making by preparing, maintaining and disseminating systematic reviews in education, crime and justice, social welfare and international development.

This federal education site provides access to a large number of data sets covering all levels of education. Use the search bar to find datasets matching your query.

The Education Digest is monthly publication that scans hundreds of publications so it can select the most critical, most newsworthy articles. They are then condensed for quick reading.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an assessment of the reading comprehension of students in their fourth year of schooling. This report compares the performance of U.S. students with their peers around the world and also examines how the reading literacy of U.S. fourth-grade students has changed since the first administration of PIRLS in 2001. Results are presented by student background characteristics (sex and race/ethnicity) and by contextual factors that may be associated with reading proficiency (school characteristics, instructional practices and teacher preparation, and the home environment for reading).