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Last spring's sudden shift to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted K-12 education in an unprecedented way. Upon Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's waiver of federally mandated state testing for spring 2020, it also triggered the first nationwide break in state testing in half a century. With students returning to school for the 2020-21 school year, state boards of education will need to get a handle on exactly where students are in their learning in order to target resources and support. States also will need to restart annual assessments mandated by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in order to track progress over time, particularly for vulnerable subgroups of students. Yet even before the pandemic, two recent FutureEd reports found that state testing systems were already in transition. A national analysis by FutureEd found that between 2014 and 2019, lawmakers in 36 states passed legislation to respond to concerns about overtesting, including by reducing testing in a variety of ways. That trend is likely to continue, as opponents to standardized testing eye the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to leverage more cuts--and even end state testing entirely. At the same time, interest is growing in innovations that could make state testing systems more useful for teachers and students by moving away from a single, end-of-year test to more frequent assessments that better reflect classroom curriculum and instruction. As state boards think about the right questions to ask about testing in order to make smart decisions moving forward, it is important to understand the history of state summative assessment in the United States, the increasing fragmentation of the state testing landscape, and the larger political context.

Precocious readers represent a small portion of children who enter school each year. Researchers have investigated the environmental characteristics, acquisition process, psycholinguistic and neuropsychological characteristics, and academic skills of these children. Despite the research findings in the area, researchers and clinicians are still unable to predict who these children will be, describe how precocious readers fit into our current theories of emergent literacy and reading development, and confidently state whether this knowledge could be generalized beyond the precocious reader to the typically reading child. Forty years of research in this area is reviewed. Suggestions for improving the accessibility and generalizability of knowledge about precocious readers are provided. (Contains 2 tables.)

BackgroundOver the past half century the prevalence of childhood disability increased dramatically, coupled with notable increases in the prevalence of mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions. This study provides a detailed assessment of recent trends in childhood disability in relation to health conditions and sociodemographic factors.MethodsSecondary data analysis of National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) datasets 2001-2002, 2004-2005, 2007-2008, and 2010-2011 (N = 198888) was conducted to calculate the prevalence, rate of change, severity, and sociodemographic disparities of parent-reported childhood disability.ResultsThe prevalence of childhood disability has continued to increase, growing by 15.6% between 2001-2002 and 2010-2011. Nearly 6 million children were considered disabled in 2010-2011. Children living in poverty experienced the highest rates of disability, 102.6 cases per 1000 population in 2010-2011, but unexpectedly, children living in households with incomes ≥ 400% above the federal poverty level experienced the largest increase (28.4%) over this 10-year period. The percentage of disability cases related to any physical health condition declined 11.8% during the decade, whereas cases related to any neurodevelopmental or mental health condition increased by 20.9%.ConclusionsOver the past decade, parent-reported childhood disability steadily increased. As childhood disability due to physical conditions declined, there was a large increase in disabilities due to neurodevelopmental or mental health problems. For the first time since the NHIS began tracking childhood disability in 1957, the rise in reported prevalence is disproportionately occurring among socially advantaged families. This unexpected finding highlights the need to better understand the social, medical, and environmental factors influencing parent reports of childhood disability.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of parent–provider discussions of family and community health risks during well-child visits and the gaps between which issues are discussed and which issues parents would like to discuss.METHODS: Data came from the National Survey of Early Childhood Health, a nationally representative sample of parents of 2068 children aged 4 to 35 months. The outcome measures were 1) the reported discussions with pediatric clinicians about 7 family and community health risks and 2) whether the parent believes that pediatric clinicians should ask parents about each risk.RESULTS: Most parents believe that pediatric providers should discuss topics such as smoking in the household, financial difficulties, and emotional support available to the parent. However, with the exception of “household smoking,” fewer than half of parents have been asked about these topics by their child’s clinician. Parents of black and Hispanic children were more likely than parents of white children to be asked about several of these issues, as were parents of the youngest children and those with publicly financed health insurance. The greatest gap between parents’ views and their reports of discussion with the clinician occur for parents of white children and older children. Among parents who hold the view that a topic should be discussed, parents of white and older children are less likely than others to report discussing some or all family and community health risks.CONCLUSION: The low frequency of discussions for many topics indicates potential unmet need. More universal surveillance of parents with young children might ensure that needs are not missed, particularly given that strong majorities of parents view family and community topics, with the exception of community violence, as appropriate for discussion in clinic visits.

A growing number of researchers are questioning the usefulness of reform strategies that do not provide teachers with specific information about how to implement changes. The replication of successful programs depends on giving teachers the tools they need to carry out reforms by explaining them in detail. (SLD)

THE SOURCE: "A Decade of Effort" by Lynn Olson, "A Second Front" by Ronald A. Wolk, and "National Standards" by Diane Ravitch, in Education Week's Quality Counts 2006, Jan. 5, […]

The proposed project is designed to reduce pregnancy rates among black adolescents through a program that teaches students in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades to value education and begin […]

Comments on the article "The Elephant in the Living Room," by Kati Haycock. Factors that contribute to the teacher gap; States wherein school districts provide parents with information on a Web site about the credentials of every public school teacher; Benefits from value-added techniques that examine how much an individual teacher contributes to the performance growth of his or her students.