Excerpts from a new Brookings Institution study, “How Well Are American Students Learning?”

All too often, policy decisions are based on wishful thinking rather than cautious analysis. As education evolves as a discipline, the careful analysis of high-quality data will provide the foundation for meaningful education reform. . . .

Powerful groups, led by the National Governors Association, are urging the states to benchmark their state achievement tests to an international assessment, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). . . . PISA poses questions that contain ideological bias. . . . Without serious reform, PISA is inappropriate for benchmarking.

Low achievers in mathematics, those scoring in the bottom tenth of all students, function several years below grade level. A shocking percentage of these low achievers, 28.6 percent, were enrolled in advanced math courses Algebra I, Algebra II, or Geometry in 2005. A policy of algebra for all eighth graders will dramatically increase the proportion of these misplaced math students. . . .

While all school districts have notched achievement gains, the big city districts made even larger gains than other districts. They are closing the gap with suburban and rural districts, slowly, to be sure, but they are clearly making progress. The analysis does not hazard a theory as to why big city achievement is rising. One possible catalyst is mayoral control, a popular urban reform in recent years. The data neither support nor refute the effectiveness of mayoral control. . . .

We are getting much better at determining how well students are learning and tracking trends in test scores as they unfold over time. But policy analysis lags behind. Explaining why students are learning more or less – and really pinpointing the causes of trends in achievement- will take much more information about the policies and practices of our schools.

For the full report, go to: http://www.brookings.edu/brown.aspx

Filed under: Lesson Plans

Tags: Research on Learning