assessment

The NAACP says it is mobilizing volunteers to lobby at the state and local levels for its biggest push to overhaul public education since the 1954 Supreme Court decision that integrated the nation’s classrooms. The historic civil rights organization unveiled a plan Thursday for salvaging U.S. public education. It advocates having children spend more hours and days in school, extending the number of years devoted to school, improving teacher training and preschool programs, and routing a greater share of school funds to the neediest students.

Florida's interim education commissioner told worried lawmakers on Thursday that glitches in the first release of scores under the state's new teacher evaluation system are being fixed and that there's no reason to delay its implementation. The Department of Education took down a website showing nearly 97 percent of Florida teachers were rated "effective" or "highly effective" in the last school year within hours of putting it up on Wednesday.

While they can also be deemed useful, state-issued test scores are just one highly subjective piece of the puzzle in determining student progress, according to Superintendent of Schools Donna Cardiello.

Grappling with decreased local and state revenue and new, more rigorous learning standards for math and English language arts, Illinois school districts are seeking innovative ways to increase their efficiency as they strive to improve student performance. One system that is making it easier to meet rigorous requirements while saving time for school and district staff is Performance Matters, a web-based solution that provides an integrated platform for student assessment, data management and teacher effectiveness.

Preliminary data released by the U.S. Department of Education this week shows that Texas — along with five other states — ranks fourth in the nation for its four-year high school graduation rates. With an overall rate of 86 percent in the 2010-11 school year, the state follows Iowa, with 88 percent, and Wisconsin and Vermont, both at 87 percent.

While almost half of city students enroll in college, Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's Chief Academic Officer, thinks schools can do more.

The Kansas State Board of Education is expected to take another look next month at a research report showing many elementary teachers have cut back or eliminated the time they spend teaching science, even though they still post science grades on student report cards.

Texas' new education commissioner Michael Williams said Thursday that he is considering a new system for rating school success and he thinks it should take into account how well districts are closing the achievement gap between Anglo and minority students.

According to a recently released report that links exposure to high-quality preschool programs to reduced crime, at-risk children and those from low-income backgrounds without access to quality early learning are more likely to be involved in violent crime, arrested, or incarcerated down the road.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has developed a new School Report Card for each public school which uses multiple measures of student learning.