Reforms in American public education have not resolved the wide academic performance gap between students attending schools in poor, large, urban centers versus schools in wealthier areas. Aggregate performance outcomes on state achievement tests reveal that some school districts consistently outperform others, a few fluctuate over time but are…

In the UK, education is the third largest area of government spending (of which school spending has the largest share). Since 2000, school expenditure has increased by about 40 per cent in real terms for both primary and secondary schools (see Figure 1). The question as to whether such investment is worthwhile is of central importance. The…

"How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement" estimates the effects on student achievement of attending a New York City charter school rather than a traditional public school and investigates the characteristics of charter schools associated with the most positive effects on achievement. Because the report relies on an…

Public school educators in the United States are coping with the immigration of families from non-English speaking countries. Teachers are pressed by federal mandates to meet the challenges of increased cultural diversity and language deficiencies of students with new skills. This study explored the effectiveness of journaling between bilingual…

This seventh edition of "Key Data on Education in Europe" retains its main special feature which is the combination of statistical data and qualitative information to describe the organisation and functioning of education systems in Europe. The present 2009 edition maintains the subject-based structure defined by the previous one but…

The aim of the conference reported in this document was to agree on a small set of education indicators that the 22 participating countries could jointly pursue over the next 5 years. Participants discussed methodological problems involved in making cross-national comparisons of outcomes of education; summarized the statistical activities underway…

Using data from one "successful" school district, I argue that, contrary to its egalitarian rhetoric, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) provides a mechanism for identifying the many whom Hernstein and Murray would exclude from schooling beyond the elementary grades because they cannot learn enough to justify the expense of their teaching. To…

The Committee on National Statistics convened a conference in October 1979 to begin to examine the question of how discrimination and equity in education can be measured. The 10 participants represented a wide range of disciplines, and the 15 representatives of federal agencies included both producers and users of indicators of equity. Background…

Claims Alan Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" and E.D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy" lead readers to believe that young Americans are extraordinarily stupid and that in their ignorance we can read the decline and fall of the American way of life. Presents support which resists rather than foments such panic. (NH)

Few people seriously regard students as "products" coming off an educational assembly line, but notions about accountability and quality improvement in higher education are pervaded by manufacturing ideas and metaphors. Because numerical indicators of quality are inevitably expressed by trend lines or statistical control chars of some kind, they…

"School Readiness Indicators: Making Progress for Young Children" was a multi-state initiative that used child well-being indicators to build a change agenda in states and local communities in order to improve school readiness and ensure early school success. The central premise behind this initiative was that top-notch school readiness…

This paper examines two common criticisms of the method that "U.S. News and World Report" used in its annual rankings of the academic quality of colleges and graduate schools. There are constant changes to the formula that make it impossible to interpret yearly shifts in a school's relative ranking in terms of change in its academic…

This document contains the first set of performance indicators about the employment outcomes of higher education in England. Indicators for other areas had previously been developed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer requested that indicators showing performance outcomes be developed. The only data available for such an indicator were found to…

Many program evaluations involve some type of statistical testing to verify that the program has succeeded in accomplishing initially established goals. In many cases, this takes the form of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) with t-tests, analysis of variance, or some form of the general linear model. This paper contends that, at least…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only continuing measure of the achievement of U.S. students in key subject areas. The National Research Council's Committee on the Evaluation of National and State Assessments of Educational Progress conducted an evaluation of the NAEP. This report contains the conclusions this…