Ladner on Arizona's performance on NAEP and international comparisons

Interesting insight into how NAEP is used vs. internal Terra Nova scores by the AZ school chief. Ladner also uses the AIR NAEP/PISA study to compare Arizona to other countries.

More Blogging on TUDA

Ezra Klein discusses comparisons using Free and Reduced Price Lunch:

Cavanagh likes State Mapping Study

From the new blog "Curriculum Matters" by Sean Cavanagh and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo - Cavanagh brings up the "good... and largely overlooked" state mapping studies.

Report: Racial gap narrows, but what did No Child law do?

Gannett and other sources cover the CEP report on student achievement released yesterday, which found that student achievement is basically on the rise in the last five years (i.e. since the enactment of NCLB). They found that gains on state tests are generally in the same direction as gains on state NAEP, but are usually greater than what's found on NAEP. While CEP is careful to say that you can't credit NCLB directly for this, surely some readers of the report will leap to make the causal link between NCLB and rising achievement.

At the briefing someone from AFT asked if the compared trend lines from before NCLB to after NCLB, which they weren't able to do because of the dearth of data pre-2002.

Maria Glod's story ran A2 in the Post.

Matthew Yglesias on TUDA

Matthew Yglesias writes for the Atlantic. I believe he is dating Sara Mead, formerly of Ed Sector (lots of research on performance gaps), and is pretty well versed on urban education. Click through for the full post:

The Truth About Urban Schools

23 Jun 2008 11:41 am

Conversations about urbanism always eventually end up going in the direction of education policy. After all, absent better schools, the city will always be a place for poor people, very rich people, and young people rather than for the mainstream of American life. To that end, it's worth noting that a lot of people's ideas about the quality of urban schools are mistaken, as you can see from a look inside the results of the NAEP mathematics test as revealed in the Trial Urban District Assessment from 2005. First off, consider the number of eighth grader who rate as "below basic" (this is bad):

Mayor Sees a Test Scores Triumph

No NAEP mention, but relevant to the discussion of state tests vs. NAEP. Scores are going up like mad in NY.

Mayor Sees a Test Scores Triumph

Or is it a case Of inflation of results?

By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 23, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/mayor-sees-a-test-scores-triumph/80476/

Mayor Bloomberg will announce an education victory today: Test scores are up across the city, by double digits at some schools. But a cloud is already gathering, as education experts are raising the possibility that these gains and others across the country could suggest score inflation and not real learning gains.

The scores being released today show a nine-percentage-point gain in math citywide versus last year, and a seven-point gain on the reading test. The gains are even more remarkable when viewed over the six-year timeline since Mr. Bloomberg took office: Three-quarters of city students now score proficient at math, up from 37% in 2002.

if you read this please email me

NAEP team - if you are reading this, please email me to let me know. I'm trying to see how useful keeping this blog is.

Report on Asian-American Achievement

Report arguing that the Asian-American and Pacific Islander category is too broad, hides low achievement of some Asian groups.