This memorandum provides information on Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) course enrollment, exam participation, and exam performance during the 2023-2024 school year. During the 2023-2024 school year, 136 AP or IB courses were offered across high schools. Among the 25 comprehensive high schools, all offered AP courses,…

This research presents a novel reading fluency (rf) measurement formula that accounts for both reading rate and comprehension. Possible formulas were investigated with 68 participants in a strategic reading course in an IEP at a small Pacific Island university. The selected formula's scores demonstrated concurrent validity through strong…

Longitudinal studies can produce biased estimates of learning if children miss tests. In an application to summer learning, we illustrate how missing test scores can create an illusion of large summer learning gaps when true gaps are close to zero. We demonstrate two methods that reduce bias by exploiting the correlations between missing and…

With the widespread use of computers in modern assessment, online calibration has become increasingly popular as a way of replenishing an item pool. The present study discusses online calibration strategies for a joint model of responses and response times. The study proposes likelihood inference methods for item paramter estimation and evaluates…

All Florida schools teach the Florida Standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics and the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) in Science and Social Studies. Student performance provides important information to parents/guardians, teachers, policy makers, and the general public regarding how well students are learning.…

Beginning with the 2020/21 school year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) began an ongoing effort to collect and analyze literacy screening assessment data from schools and districts participating in certain state grants to inform improvement efforts. Grantee schools and districts that provide literacy…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and Maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year-to-year. This year, more than 13,000 Year 11 students…

This memorandum provides information on Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) course enrollment, exam participation, and exam performance during the 2022-2023 school year. During the 2022-2023 school year, 129 AP or IB courses were offered across high schools. Among the 25 comprehensive high schools, all offered AP courses,…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact, implementation and costs associated with a one-semester elective lab course in 9th grade, Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, which seeks to improve students' reading achievement, particularly for those from economically disadvantaged communities. This study used three cohorts…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year-to-year. This year, more than 13,000 Year 11 students…

All Florida schools teach the Florida Standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics. Student performance on the Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) provides important information to parents/guardians, teachers, policy makers, and the general public regarding how well students are learning the Florida Standards. This document has been…

Teacher license reciprocity allows educators who hold a teaching license in one state to earn a license in another state, subject to meeting state-specific requirements. Reciprocity agreements allow states to work through variations in licensing systems to coordinate license transfers and fill vacant teaching positions with qualified candidates.…

All Florida schools teach the Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics and the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) in Science and Social Studies. Student performance provides important information to parents/guardians, teachers, policy makers, and the general public regarding how well students…

In recent years, schools and large-scale assessment developers across the United States have been providing English learners with language supports when they take tests to reduce construct-irrelevant variance, or errors in test scores due to factors that are extraneous to the construct being assessed (Thorndike et al., 1991). Some of these…

Over the past 10-15 years, there has emerged a growing consensus, supported by high-quality empirical research, that additional funding improves student outcomes (and funding cuts hurt those outcomes), particularly among disadvantaged students. There are, of course, serious and important debates about how education funding should be spent. Yet…