IES is the primary research, evaluation, and statistics arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Established through the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA), the Institute's mission is to expand fundamental knowledge and understanding of education and to provide education leaders and practitioners, parents and students, researchers, and…

Controversy has surrounded the annual National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) since its introduction in 2008. This initiative was designed to provide nationally consistent information on student progress in basic skills in years 3, 5, and 7, replacing the various state-based tests that preceded it. A great deal of criticism has…

In 2010, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Education Program has established the Deeper Learning Initiative, which focuses on students' development of deeper learning skills (i.e., the mastery of core academic content, critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and "learn-how-to-learn" skills). Two test…

How does literacy develop in children's early years, and what programs or practices promote adequate literacy for all children? These are the questions Catherine Snow and Timothy Matthews tackle in this article. Fundamental literacy skills can be grouped into two categories, Snow and Matthews write. The first category is "constrained"…

In information-rich environments, schools are often presented with a myriad of data from which decisions need to be made. The use of the information on a classroom level may be facilitated if performance could be described in terms of levels of proficiency or benchmarks. The aim of this article is to explore benchmarks using data from a monitoring…

The U.S. Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report to help inform policymakers about the progress of education in the United States. Using data from across the center and from other sources of education data, "The Condition of Education 2015" presents 42 key indicators on…

In a report issued in 2010, the authors found only 6 percent of U.S. students performing at the advanced level in mathematics, a percentage lower than those attained by 30 other countries. And the problem is not limited to top-performing students. In 2011, they showed that just 32 percent of 8th graders in the United States were proficient in…

This publication contains a sample of the 44 indicators in "The Condition of Education 2003." The indicators in this publication are numbered sequentially, rather than according to their numbers in the complete edition. The Contents page offers a cross reference between the two publications. Since 1870, the federal government has…

Since 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been the common yardstick for measuring the progress of students' education over time across the country. Teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and researchers all use NAEP results to assess progress and develop ways to improve education in America. To make the…