This investigation scrutinizes the relative effectiveness of individual versus bundled accommodations -- specifically, breaks and extended time (ET) -- on the performance, behaviors, and attitudes of eighth-grade students with disabilities during the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) digital math test. Through a detailed…

Extended time is frequently recommended for students with disabilities (SWD) with an intent to remove barriers to accurate measurement of their underlying knowledge and skills. However, empirical findings have varied in terms of whether extended time conditions are an appropriate method for doing so, raising questions of whether frequent…

Science tends to be viewed as a completely separate subject area from reading and math. This is the case even in elementary school, where academic content may be more intertwined than in later years. But scientific thinking and processes are valuable across all areas of learning and for career success. Waiting until the middle grades to give…

A goal of geography education is fostering geographic literacy for all and building significant expertise for some. How much time and practice do students need to become literate or expert in geography? There is not an answer to this question. Using two concepts from cognitive psychology--the ideas of ten thousand hours and deliberate…

This report examines what the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) can tell us about charter school enrollment and student performance compared to that of regular public schools. The study uses NAEP reading and mathematics data from 2011 and the earlier years when charter school data first became available (2003 for grade 4; 2005 for…

This report uses NAEP background data to track time and learning since the mid-1990s in three areas: student absenteeism; classroom instructional time in mathematics, reading, music and the visual arts; and homework time expected by teachers. Key report findings are: (1) Students with higher rates of "monthly absenteeism" score…

There has been little data collected on how much testing actually goes on in America's schools and how the results are used. So in the Spring of 2014, the Council staff developed and launched a survey of assessment practices. This report presents the findings from that survey and subsequent Council analysis and review of the data. It also offers…

This report presents results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in writing at grades 8 and 12. In this new national writing assessment sample, 24,100 eighth-graders and 28,100 twelfth-graders engaged with writing tasks and composed their responses on computer. The assessment tasks reflected writing situations common to…

To assess the condition of American education in the next decade, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) should focus on collecting data in the following major areas: (1) the quality and quantity of time that is allocated to various activities in the classroom; (2) the concerns of teachers, including their working conditions and time…

State and national data were used to examine whether Pennsylvania students are part of a national trend of decreasing higher achievers' scores and declining higher order skills. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports and the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment (EQA) were examined. Analysis indicated that…

The reports of four recent reform proposals for American education were analyzed: "A Nation at Risk,""Action for Excellence,""Academic Preparation for College," and "Making the Grade." The authors concluded that the commissions used weak arguments and poor data. Recommendations were made to remedy current…

To probe the association of reading achievement with factors in learning, the scores of 2,890 13-year-old students from a National Assessment of Educational Progress sample were regressed on 24 indexes of the factors, singly and as a set. Achievement showed diminishing or eventually negative returns to eight time variables. (Author/BS)

Classroom activities related to the mathematics achievement level of students in 36 fourth-grade mathematics classes were identified. Engagement in competitive mathematics activities, cooperative mathematics activities, social activities, and off-task behavior was consistently and differentially related to girls' versus boys' low-level and…

This document analyzes responses to questions included in a national assessment of knowledge of U.S. history and geography in an attempt to determine the relationship between study habits and academic performance. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1994 asked 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade students specific questions regarding…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) evaluated the writing ability of American students in 1974, 1979, and 1984. Data from 95,000 students were examined for trends over this 10-year period. Writing tasks, including informative, persuasive, and literary or imaginative writing were administered to national samples of students aged…