Andre Perry of the Brookings Institution lays out a compelling argument in the national debate on testing in a new piece, suggesting that the shortcomings many see with standardized tests are often rooted in how data is used, rather than with the tests themselves. Perry...
Kentucky officials have clarified guidance for schools and districts on the state’s plan for administering spring assessments this year and using the results to inform instruction, guide supports, and depict pandemic learning loss. Education Commissioner Jason Glass, discussing Kentucky’s assessment plan in light of updated...
Alabama’s graduation rate continued its years-long climb for the Class of 2019, achieving the nation’s highest graduation rate and beating the national average by nearly 6 percentage points. State education officials both celebrated and expressed caution after the data was announced, with Alabama Department of...
After announcing plans to continue pursuing a waiver of federally required statewide assessments despite Education Department guidance saying such requests would not be approved, the New York Board of Regents has stated a contingency plan. In the event the Department rejects plans to cancel NY...
According to the Office of the D.C. Auditor, District officials have failed to collect required data needed to evaluate the performance of schools, including data on student achievement, absenteeism, and enrollment and transfers – despite receiving $30 million in local and federal funding for reporting...
Montana has released federally required school report cards for the 2019-20 school year, while flagging that some key data points that typically rely on student test scores would be missing as assessments were canceled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the missing data,...
EdNavigator, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing student access to opportunities from preschool through college and beyond, recently published a comprehensive and compelling discussion on student assessments specifically geared for parents. The piece, titled What Parents Need to Know About Tests, explores misconceptions about the...
The Tennessee Office of the Comptroller has launched an interactive dashboard for school-by-school spending data for every school in the state, building on the ESSA requirement that states publicly report per-pupil expenditure data starting with the 2018-19 school year. The Comptroller’s report on the data...
Continuing a trend seen across much of the nation, Virginia’s public school system is grappling with a sharp decline in enrollment numbers, particularly for students entering kindergarten. As many parents chose to delay the start of their child’s kindergarten year to avoid an all-remote setting,...
In light of the Education Department’s decision to refrain from issuing a second year of waivers of federally required statewide student assessments this school year, states are rapidly shifting their conversations to focus on how best to collect, present, and use resulting data on student...
