This study investigates a novel approach to automatically assessing essay quality that combines natural language processing approaches that assess text features with approaches that assess individual differences in writers such as demographic information, standardized test scores, and survey results. The results demonstrate that combining text…

This report reviews the major international and regional large-scale educational assessments, including international surveys, school-based surveys and household-based surveys. The report compares and contrasts the cognitive and contextual data collection instruments and implementation methods used by the different assessments in order to identify…

Points out the limitations of reading surveys and stresses the need to interpret the results carefully. A literacy survey is used to highlight the kinds of goals which surveys might legitimately expect to accomplish. (RW)

Results of the Gates-Macginitie Reading Test for sixth graders are summarized. Tables include information for each subtest concerning mean scores, percentile ranks, grade equivalent scores, and standard scores. The level of achievement in this survey was lower than that of previous surveys. (MS)

The James Irvine Foundation launched the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative in 1999 with the goal of improving the academic achievement of children in the lowest-performing schools in five California cities. In 2004, CORAL adopted a more targeted approach toward reaching this goal by integrating a regular…