ASSESSMENT, ACCOUNTABILITY AND REFORM

 Yes We Can: Telling Truths and Dispelling Myths About Race and Education in America

This report examines the educational practices and policies that have raised academic achievement for low-income and minority students, and offers compelling evidence that children of color excel in school when given the right teaching, right classes and right support.

Measures that Matter - Making College and Career Readiness the Mission for America’s High Schools

This report is a joint, ongoing effort by Achieve and The Education Trust to provide strategic and technical guidance to states in creating a coherent set of policies designed to get all students college- and career-ready.

ESEA: Myths versus Realities

Answers to common questions about the new No Child Left Behind Act.

No Child Left Behind User Guide

This guide provides user-friendly information on NCLB that parents and communities can understand and use.  This guide highlights key aspects of the NCLB law in user-friendly language helping parents and community use NCLB for advocacy.

No Child Left Behind Fact Sheets

These quick easy one page fact sheets provide vital information on key provisions of NCLB.

Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge

This report examines state assessment results in reading and math between 2003 and 2005 and finds that progress in raising achievement and closing gaps continues to be strongest in the elementary grades. 

Stalled in Secondary

This report provides readers with data that shows three years after the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act, student achievement in secondary schools is lagging, and too few states are narrowing achievement gaps.

Measured Progress

This report documents that student achievement in reading and math is rising in the elementary grades in most states, and achievement gaps are narrowing, but in many places, the pace of these gains must accelerate dramatically if all students are to meet state standards by 2014.

The ABCs of "AYP"

Raising Achievement for All Students -- A brief report detailing the basic principles and core requirements of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) - the accountability mechanism in No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This report is one in a series on implementing NCLB.

ABC's of AYP PowerPoint

Questions to Ask About NCLB 

Public reporting of school, district, and state data is one of the cornerstones of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This document lists the information the public is entitled to under NCLB.

What New “AYP” Information Tells Us About Schools, States, and Public Education

This report documents how AYP provides important new information about academic achievement in America’s public schools.  This year’s first-ever application of the AYP formula is providing the foundation for school improvement efforts in all 50 states by uncovering large achievement gaps, identifying schools that have made significant progress, and recognizing schools with high percentages of low-income and minority children meeting state proficiency benchmarks.

Creating an Appetite for Change: Leaders' Perspectives on Promoting K-16 Reform Through Community Collaboration

Policy Studies Associates, Inc., Washington D.C., 2000. 28 pages.

TEACHER QUALITY

Core Problems 

Learn about how out-of-field teaching persists in key academic courses in high-poverty and high-minority schools.

Their Fair Share: How Texas-Sized Gaps in Teacher Quality Shortchange Poor and Minority Students

This follow-up study of Texas’s 50 largest school districts finds significant teacher quality and pay gaps throughout the state.

Their Fair Share: How Teacher Salary Gaps Shortchange Poor Children in Texas

Their Fair Share: How Teacher Salary Gaps Shortchange Minority Children in Texas

These companion reports document funding patterns in the state’s 10 largest school systems, showing how average teacher salaries vary dramatically between schools within the same district. The reports describe gaps in per-teacher spending, and how those gaps stack the deck against the academic success of low-income, Hispanic and African American children.

Hidden Spending Gaps in California's School Districts - School-Level Hidden Gap Reports

This new series of Hidden Gap reports by The Education Trust-West looks at the impact of the hidden teacher-spending gaps in schools throughout California. The series is comprised of 12 district-specific reports that reveal school-level gaps in California’s largest school districts, along with a web-based tool that allows access to hidden gap information about every public school in California.

Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality

This report provides new information on the impact of teacher quality on student achievement and offers specific steps states should take to remedy the persistent practice of denying the best teachers to the children who need them the most.

The Real Value of Teachers: Using New Information about Teacher Effectiveness to Close the Achievement Gap:

This report lays out an ambitious policy agenda, premised on an exhaustive review of the existing research on teacher effectiveness—often referred to as “value-added.”

Missing the Mark: States’ Teacher Equity Plans Fall Short

This analysis of teacher-equity plans prepared by all 50 states and the District of Columbia finds that most states failed to properly analyze data that would determine whether poor and minority children get more than their fair share of unqualified, inexperienced, and out-of-field teachers.

Implementing Key Teacher Quality Provisions

NCLB requires states to adopt minimum standards for who can be considered a “highly qualified” teacher, measure the extent to which the state provides such teachers to all students, and adopt goals and plans to ensure that all students are taught by qualified teachers.  This paper discusses the key teacher quality provisions in NCLB.

Telling the Whole Truth (or Not) About Highly Qualified Teachers: New State Data

This report reveals that while some states made good faith efforts to report honest data, others fell far short.  A considerable number of states reported no teacher quality data at all, some states reported data that appears inconsistent, and many others failed to apply their own definitions of teacher quality before submitting their baseline data.  Consequently, the data provides a distorted picture of where states stand now, and what progress needs to be made.

In Need of Improvement: Ten Ways the U.S. Department of Education Has Failed to Live Up to Its Teacher Quality Commitments

A brief report criticizing the U.S. Department of Education for failing to make adequate progress implementing the crucial teacher quality provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

All Talk, No Action: Putting an End to Out-of-Field Teaching

This report offers the first available state-by-state analysis of the newest federal data on the percentage of core academic secondary school classes taught by a teacher without a major or minor in the subject.

Technical Appendix

Interpret With Caution: The First State Title II Reports on the Quality of Teacher Preparation

This report offers the first available state-by-state analysis of the newest federal data on the percentage of core academic secondary school classes taught by a teacher without a major or minor in the subject, a practice known as out-of-field teaching.

Good Teaching Matters: How Well-Qualified Teachers Can Close the Gap

This report marshals findings from several recent large-scale studies of student achievement to argue that policy makers hoping to boost student achievement must attend, first and foremost, to issues of teacher quality - the quality of teacher preparation, recruitment, licensure, hiring, assignment and ongoing professional development.

Honor in the Boxcar: Equalizing Teacher Quality

Not Good Enough: A Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing Examinations

This report shows that many states grant teaching licenses without requiring that individuals demonstrate knowledge of the subject area that they intend to teach.

HIGH SCHOOL

Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students

This report is the result of a careful, on-the-ground study into the practices of public high schools that serve high concentrations of either low-income or minority children and have a strong track record accelerating learning for students who enter high school below grade level. This study compares and contrasts the practices of these high-impact schools with similar high schools that have only an average impact on student performance.

Technical Appendix

The Power to Change: High Schools that Help All Students Achieve

This report chronicles the stories of three very different high schools that are getting strong results for minority students and students from low-income families. The report demonstrates clearly that some high schools are succeeding, even under challenging circumstances.

On Course for Success

The Education Trust along with the ACT collaborated to write On Course for Success which provides examples of model high school courses that prepare students for the rigors of college and ultimately the work force.

Stalled in Secondary

This report provides readers with data that shows three years after the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act, student achievement in secondary schools is lagging, and too few states are narrowing achievement gaps.

A New Core Curriculum For All: Aiming High For Other People's Children

This report findings from several recent large-scale economic and education studies to argue that educators and policymakers working to ensure that all students are prepared for success in work and in college must attend, first and foremost, to ensuring that students take the kinds of rigorous courses that research makes clear are necessary for such success.

All Talk, No Action: Putting an End to Out-of-Field Teaching

This report offers the first available state-by-state analysis of the newest federal data on the percentage of core academic secondary school classes taught by a teacher without a major or minor in the subject.

Counting on Graduation

This report shows how most state accountability systems still exhibit a surprising indifference toward improving the high school graduation rates—and thus, the life chances—of their young people. It provides information about what states are doing (and not doing) to boost graduation rates and provides specific recommendations for improvement.

Graduation Matters:
Improving Accountability for High School Graduation

This report details state-set goals for graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, showing how improvement targets are often so low that they undercut the aim of significantly raising graduation rates. 

Telling the Whole Truth (or Not) About High School Graduation: New State Data

This report highlights the need for states to better report their high school graduation data.  Ultimately, this data should result in greater awareness of how many students, particularly low-income and minority students, make it through high school.  A state-by-state analysis of graduation rates in all 50 states demonstrates that while some states seem to have seized this opportunity to provide an honest picture of high school graduation among their young people, many other states were lax in reporting complete and useful data. 

Ticket to Nowhere: The Gap Between Leaving High School and Entering College and High-Performance Jobs

This report documents significant gaps between the course and testing requirements for high school graduation and those for admission and placement in college.

Youth at the Crossroads: Facing High School and Beyond

SCHOOL PROFILES

Benwood Initiative Hamilton County, Tennessee, has focused its attention on nine high-poverty, high-minority schools with concentrated help for the principals and teachers to improve instruction. All of the schools have improved; one was named the most-improved in the state.

Capitol View Elementary Capitol View, where most of the students are low-income and African American, has posted some of the highest achievement scores in Georgia, with just about all of its fifth-graders meeting state reading and math standards and most exceeding them.

East Millsboro Elementary Ethnically diverse East Millsboro Elementary School, where about half the students are low-income, posts some of the highest achievement in Delaware, with proficiency rates hovering in the 90 percents and sometimes hitting 100 percent.

(Update: The principal, Gary Brittingham, now works in the district’s central office; Assistant principal Mary Bixler has become principal.)

Elmont Memorial Junior-Senior High With a student body that is three-quarters African American, Elmont Memorial Junior-Senior High School in Elmont, New York (just inside Nassau County from Queens) has built a culture of achievement where just about all students graduate. “Because a child is poor doesn’t mean he can’t learn,” said principal Al Harper.

(Update: Principal Al Harper has become superintendent of Elmont Union Free District; assistant principal John Capozzi has become principal.)

Graham Road Elementary School While more than 80 percent of the students at Graham Road Elementary School qualify for free and reduced-price lunch and nearly all are non-white (primarily the children of recent immigrants), every sixth grader met or exceeded state reading standards in 2008, and 96 percent met or exceeded state math standards.

Granger High School Ninety percent of Granger High School’s students are low-income and most arrive at the school reading two or more grade levels behind. By tenth grade most pass the state’s reading and writing tests. “I come from poverty—I come from where the students come from,” said principal Richard Esparza. “If I can make it, they can make it.”

(Update: Principal Richard Esparza left Granger to pursue a doctorate in education with the plan of becoming a superintendent. “Now that I’ve shown that it can be done at a school,” he said, “I want to show it can be done in a district.”)

Imperial High School Located a few miles from the Mexican border, 70 percent of Imperial High School’s students are Latino, many with parents who did not graduate from high school. And yet it has built a college-going culture where almost all students graduate on time prepared for post-secondary education.

Norfork Elementary School Rural and geographically isolated, Norfork, Ark., has limited experience with a culture of academic achievement. But with 80 percent of the students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, the community does have experience with poverty. This spring, the literacy scores of Norfork’s sixth graders were among the highest in the state, far outperforming many wealthier schools. In 2007, all sixth graders also met the state’s new, higher math standards.

Osmond Church P.S./M.S. Osmond Church (P.S./M.S. 124 in Queens, New York) has achievement levels that compare well with some of the wealthiest schools in New York City, despite the fact that more than 80 percent of its students meet the qualification for free lunch. “Don’t tell me what a child can’t do,” says its principal, Valarie Lewis.

Port Chester Middle School Port Chester Middle School, where about 60 percent of the students are eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meal program—many of them very recent immigrants from Central America—has much higher percentages of eighth-grade students meeting state reading, math, and science standards than New York State.

Roxbury Preparatory Charter School This middle school was designed to take students who have been ill-served by their Boston-area elementary schools and prepare them for the most prestigious college-prep high schools in New England. By eighth grade, the proportion of African-American and Latino students at Roxbury Prep who are proficient on state standards is greater than the percentage of white students statewide.

M. Hall Stanton Elementary Located in North Philadelphia, all of Stanton’s students are low-income and African American, and it was once known as one of the lowest-performing schools in Philadelphia. In 2006, more than 70 percent met state reading standards and more than 80 percent met state math standards.

(Update: Toward the beginning of the 2007-8 school year, Principal Barbara Adderley began work as a regional superintendent in Washington, D.C.)

Ware Elementary Serving the children of infantry troops on Fort Riley, Ware Elementary is widely recognized as one of the top schools in the state. This, despite the fact that most of the families are not only low-income but battered by the trauma and displacement that comes from multiple deployments to two wars.

Wells Elementary “Rust belt” is not a metaphor in Steubenville, Ohio, but a brutal description of the huge assemblies of corroded metal that hug the city. As they lose income, population, and hope, many such places find achievement in their schools begin to plummet. Steubenville, however, has been improving academic performance.

West Jasper Elementary West Jasper Elementary School, where about 80 percent of the students are low-income, has gone from a school where few children read on grade level to one where most children read on grade level. In fact, the school is part of a state-wide effort to improve reading instruction for all Alabama students.

It's Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools takes readers into schools where educators believe—and prove—that all children can learn to high standards.  Pulling practices from schools across the country, resident writer Karin Chenoweth details how thoughtful instruction, high expectations and stubborn commitment can result in remarkable improvements in student achievement.  Amazon.com and Harvard Education Press

HIGHER EDUCATION

Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equity in the Nation’s Premier Public Universities

This report sharply criticizes most flagship universities in each of the 50 states for limiting access to minority students.

Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Institutional Practices Restrict College Opportunities

This report sharply criticizes trends in federal, state, and college practices that discourage low-income and minority students from enrolling and graduating from college.

One Step from the Finish Line: Higher College-Graduation Rates are Within Our Reach

This report challenges the conventional wisdom about college-graduation rates by highlighting the strategies of some successful colleges and universities.

Choosing To Improve: Voices from Colleges and Universities with Better Graduation Rates

Offers a more detailed examination of the practices of these schools and outlines a growing body of research that tells us that what schools do matters a great deal -- from their efforts to keep new students engaged to their use of data to uncover obstacles to completion.

A Matter of Degrees

A new analysis reveals deep problems in the graduation rates at 4-year colleges and universities, but finds that some institutions do a much better job graduating some students than others.

FUNDING

 The Funding Gap

This 2006 report documents the fact that poorer states receive less in education funding, while poorer districts within states receive lower funding, and that poorer schools within districts are under-funded.

1/7/09 – We recently discovered some data errors in the 2008 edition of The Funding Gap and are working to correct them and then repost the report as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the 2006 edition is our most up-to-date and comprehensive report on state funding gaps. Please check back soon for the updated 2008 report. We apologize for any inconvenience. For more information, please contact Christina Theokas at ctheokas@edtrust.org.

Their Fair Share: How Texas-Sized Gaps in Teacher Quality Shortchange Poor and Minority Students

This follow-up study of Texas’s 50 largest school districts finds significant teacher quality and pay gaps throughout the state

Their Fair Share: How Teacher Salary Gaps Shortchange Poor Children in Texas

Their Fair Share: How Teacher Salary Gaps Shortchange Minority Children in Texas

These companion reports document funding patterns in the state’s 10 largest school systems, showing how average teacher salaries vary dramatically between schools within the same district. The reports describe gaps in per-teacher spending, and how those gaps stack the deck against the academic success of low-income, Hispanic and African American children.

Hidden Spending Gaps in California's School Districts - School-Level Hidden Gap Reports

This new series of Hidden Gap reports by The Education Trust-West looks at the impact of the hidden teacher-spending gaps in schools throughout California. The series is comprised of 12 district-specific reports that reveal school-level gaps in California’s largest school districts, along with a web-based tool that allows access to hidden gap information about every public school in California.

The Funding Gap Report 2005

This most recent report documents the fact that, in most states, school districts attended by poor and minority children receive far less money than the districts that serve White and more affluent children.

Technical Appendix

The Funding Gap Report 2004

This updated report documents how most states continue to shortchange poor and minority students by failing to fairly fund the schools they attend.

Technical Appendix

The Funding Gap Report 2003

The study reveals that, in most states, school districts that educate the greatest number of low-income and minority students receive substantially less state and local money per student than districts with the fewest low-income and minority students.

Technical Appendix

The Funding Gap

This 2002 report documents large funding gaps between high- and low-poverty and minority districts in many states.

Technical Appendix  

The Other Gap: Poor Students Receive Fewer Dollars Gap

The first Funding Gap report, this analysis of state and local education dollars reveals substantial funding inequities in most states. Education Trust Data Bulletin. 3 pages.
 

STATE AND NATIONAL DATA

Education Watch State Summaries

Part of the Education Watch series, these NAEP Data Tables allow for easy state-to-state comparisons of scale scores for different groups of students. They include tables that look at student achievement and gap trends over time. 

African American Achievement in America

This brief two-pager documents the current status of African American Achievement in America, High-Performing Schools, and ways communities can help close the achievement gap.

Latino Achievement in America

This brief two-pager and PowerPoint documents the current status of Latino Achievement in America, High-Performing Schools, and ways communities can help close the achievement gap.

En Español

CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT

Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students

This report is the result of a careful, on-the-ground study into the practices of public high schools that serve high concentrations of either low-income or minority children and have a strong track record accelerating learning for students who enter high school below grade level. This study compares and contrasts the practices of these high-impact schools with similar high schools that have only an average impact on student performance.

Technical Appendix

On Course for Success

The Education Trust along with the ACT collaborated to write On Course for Success which provides examples of model high school courses that prepare students for the rigors of college and ultimately the work force.

A New Core Curriculum For All:
Aiming High For Other People's Children

This report highlights findings from several large-scale economic and education studies. It argues that educators and policymakers working to ensure that all students are prepared for success in work and in college must attend, first and foremost, to ensuring that students take the rigorous courses that research makes clear are necessary for such success.

Add It Up: Mathematics Education in the U.S. Does Not Compute

This report marshals findings from several large-scale studies of mathematics achievement – both national and international – to argue that improving mathematics achievement in the United States will require a coordinated K-16 approach involving both K-12 and higher education.

Ticket to Nowhere: The Gap Between Leaving High School and Entering College and High-Performance Jobs

This report documents significant gaps between the course and testing requirements for high school graduation and those for admission and placement in college.

New Frontiers for A New Century: A National Overview

Thinking K-16, Spring 2001. 24 pages.

Learning in Overdrive

Designing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment from Standards 

This manual was written for educators who want to bring standards into their classrooms but are unsure of where to begin.

Smart Start II: Why Standards Matter

Education Trust staffers, return to the subject of elementary education in this update of their 1991 best-seller, Smart Start.

Shifting Gears: Standards, Assessments, Curriculum and Instruction

Education Trust staffer, Eleanor Dougherty, offers practical hands-on advice to help educators align practice to standards.

Front End Alignment

This manual explains how to carry out standards-based school reform in a process involving teachers, higher education faculty, parents and business representatives.

Real Results, Remaining Challenges: The Story of Texas Education Reform:

For the Business Roundtable, Washington DC.

Education reform in Texas has attracted both fans and critics. In this report for the Business Roundtable, The Education Trust looks at the data to help readers separate fact from fiction about the effect of Texas’s policies on raising student achievement and closing gaps between groups of students.

Creating an Appetite for Change: Leaders' Perspectives on Promoting K-16 Reform Through Community Collaboration

Policy Studies Associates, Inc., Washington D.C., 2000. 28 pages.

PUBLICATIONS FOR PARENTS

Parent and Community Newsletter 

This parent/community newsletter keeps parents informed and engaged in the education of their children.

Winter 2005

Summer 2005

Guide to Help Latino Parents Improve Their Children's Education

This guide offers a number of suggestions for how Latino parents can get involved and be a better advocate for the education of Latino children.

En Español

Guide to Help African-American Parents Improve Their Children's Education

This guide gives African-American parents the necessary tools needed to advocate and improve their child’s education.

Parent and Community Data Guide

This easy-to-use guide gives parents and the public the tools to collect and analyze school data to improve student achievement.

No Child Left Behind User Guide

This guide provides user-friendly information on NCLB that parents and communities can understand and use. This guide highlights key aspects of the NCLB law in user-friendly language helping parents and communities use NCLB for advocacy.

No Child Left Behind Fact Sheets

These quick, easy one-page fact sheets provide vital information on key provisions of NCLB.