Smarter/Balanced and PARCC, the two assessment consortia that I’ve predicted will matter more than Race to the Top, boast 31 and 26 member states, respectively. But given the rules for state membership, we can expect quite a bit of flux in membership over the next few years.

Each consortia has two classes of membership, governing states and advisory (Smarter/Balanced) or participaContinue Reading »

Four years from now it will be clear that while the Race to the Top competition drove important state-level policy changes, the work of the assessment consortia will have made the most direct impact on teaching and learning. Consortia decisions will have also directed hundreds of millions in funding from a variety of other state and federal programs.

After reading the applications froContinue Reading »

Today is the deadline for the $350 million “Race to the Test” competition. Proposals for a $320 million fund for comprehensive assessment systems (two proposals to be funded) and a $30 million fund for high school end-of-course tests are due today. And, as feared, this “Race” is not really a competition, but more akin to your elementary school’s annual field day: There will be only three conContinue Reading »

One of the best things states can do to improve their measures of high school effectiveness–and importantly, provide valuable information to educators–has nothing to do with a test. Feedback reports for high schools, containing information on students’ actual college and career outcomes, can reduce the huge burden on assessment systems to accurately measure all of the qualitieContinue Reading »

Last July I set out five “must-dos” for the administration’s $350 million “Race to the Test” competition. Ten months later, here’s my evaluation of the work in progress:

TO: Education policy wonks, pundits, bloggers, and/or twitter addicts

A little depressed and wondering what you’ll write about now that Race to the Top’s first round winners have been revealed? Sure, you could beat the various transparency/process stories to depth, begin immediate second-round speculation, or call for an even tougher second-round judging standard (crappy applContinue Reading »

Part VI of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Laurence Holt, EVP and Chief Product Officer for Wireless Generation, and an author of And Now For Something Completely Different, a guide to Instructional Improvement Systems from which the post below is adapted:

Dear Finalist,

First, congratulations! I assume you are busy preparing your presContinue Reading »

Part V of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Ben Boer, Senior Policy Associate at Advance Illinois:

Education Sector’s five principles for use of data re-imagine the relationship between data and education. Today, too much good data lives in silos — in state agencies, in districts, in schools, even at vendors. The data in a particulaContinue Reading »

Part IV of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Dr. Heather Weiss, Founder and Director of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP):

Education Sector’s five design principles powerfully reframe the conversation about how, when and where to use data to support student learning so that it will not die in vast data warehouses, but will live to guidContinue Reading »

Part III of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Vincent Cho, M.Ed., former teacher and assistant principal, now a PhD student and researcher on educational data use at The University of Texas at Austin:

Education Sector’s Five Design Principles raises important questions about the technology tools we provide to schools. A lot of us think about whContinue Reading »