Five facts about standardized tests should cause educators to rethink their use in decision-making. Standardized tests used for state and federal accountability purposes in PreK--12 public education are not diagnostic. The test results are impacted by family income and student background knowledge. The composition of the tests disadvantage…

The purpose of this paper is to open the methods, construction and assumptions of a new performance benchmark to examination, critique, and improvement by technical experts. The paper begins with known technical questions about this new benchmark. In includes suggestions made by technical advisors. It then details the construction of the…

Each year, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) releases a list of scientific advances that represent significant progress in the field. The "2019 IACC Summary of Advances" provides short, plain language summaries of the top research breakthroughs selected by the IACC from a pool of research articles nominated by the…

Reducing the economic and social burden associated with poor academic achievement represents an urgent concern in South Africa. Increasingly research suggests that child characteristics in kindergarten play an important role in charting courses towards academic success and educational attainment by early adulthood. Although math and reading skills…

Sixty-three percent of AISD's Class of 2013 graduates enrolled in a postsecondary institution the year after high school, and 74% of Class of 2012 graduates persisted in college for a second year. A supplemental report (published separately) provides technical documentation. [For the technical documentation report, see ED626499.]

In recent years, a number of educators have challenged the usefulness of SAT and ACT tests as indicators of college readiness, and some institutions have stopped requiring college entrance examinations altogether. The purpose of this trustee guide is to acquaint trustees with the history and use of college entrance tests and the arguments for and…

Research on academic achievement has demonstrated the important role that teachers play in improving student outcomes and has also revealed wide variation in teachers' qualifications and experiences across schools. Schools serving low-income students in urban areas, for example, have fewer well-qualified teachers than schools in nonurban settings…

Since 1997, England has seen massive changes in the Early Years including the introduction of an early childhood curriculum, free pre-school education for three-year-olds and local programmes for disadvantaged communities. Many of these initiatives took time to introduce and become established. Beginning in 2001, and each year thereafter until…

Consistent, excellent teaching is the single greatest factor in improving student achievement over time. School leadership is the second. Excellent teaching and strong leadership require deliberate, ongoing professional learning. In working with high-poverty school systems over time, the following basics emerge: (1) time; (2) content; (3)…

The effects of economic hardship and language isolation in children's neighborhood communities were examined to determine their influence on young children's developmental outcomes on measures of academic and social skills above and beyond child and family characteristics that included home language, disability, gender, and mother's education…

Childhood internalizing problems may occur as early as preschool, tend to be stable over time, and undermine social and academic functioning. Parent emotion regulatory behaviors may contribute to child internalizing problems and may be especially important during the preschool years when parents model emotion coping and regulation for their…

Some early childhood variables are examined to evaluate their predictive validity. The selection of children needing early childhood Title I services is complicated by the lack of criteria for defining who is educationally disadvantaged and the special problems of early childhood testing and measurement. The study used re-analysis of longitudinal…

The Phi Delta Kappa Study of Students At Risk assessed who is at risk, what puts students at risk, what schools are doing to help those students, and how effective these efforts are. Data were provided on at-risk students in 85 U.S. and Canadian communities by teachers who knew each student best and had access to a student's school records. This…

Examines Chicano return migration and earnings differentials between return and onward Chicano migrants by reviewing 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample of the U.S. census. Results indicate that Chicano return migrants have smaller earnings largely due to living in areas with higher concentrations of co-ethnics. Apparently, return migrants are…

Examines the determinants of occupational mobility for a sample of unauthorized Latino men who received temporary residency status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Data show English language ability, experience, risk of being apprehended, migrant networks, and the wage penalty for unauthorized workers all play roles in mobility…