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The goal of Smithsonian Science for North and South Carolina Classrooms was to provide teachers with ongoing, differentiated professional development and research-based curricular materials to improve elementary student achievement in science, mathematics, and reading. This work used an inquiry-based science curriculum, Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, which is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and was implemented in Grades 3-5 within predominantly rural North and South Carolina school districts serving high-needs students. The Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) at the University of Memphis, a State of Tennessee Center of Excellence, was the independent third-party evaluator. CREP implemented a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to collect and analyze data using a rigorous, mixed-methods approach, including quantitative analyses of student achievement data from the Stanford-10 and state assessments, and qualitative analyses of classroom observation data, as well as teacher feedback from professional development surveys, module logs, and focus groups. For this study, 36 schools (including one split cohort being treated as one school) in seven districts within North and South Carolina were randomly assigned to treatment and comparison groups. The study cohort, followed over three academic years (2020-21 through 2022-23), was composed of more than 1,600 third grade (2020-21) students in these schools. In the comparison condition, schools used their business-as-usual science curricula and teacher professional development and did not receive Smithsonian Science curricular materials or professional development. As the pretests for achievement outcomes, students took the Abbreviated Battery of the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Tenth Edition (Stanford-10) in Reading and Math in spring of 2021 (the cohort's third grade year). The main findings and posttests included the combined sample (i.e., both states combined) for (a) the Stanford-10 Science subtest, which was administered in the spring of 2023 (the cohort's fifth grade year), and (b) spring 2023 standardized state assessment scores in Reading and Math. Using a hierarchical linear model (HLM) with school as a random effect, the analysis of the effect of Smithsonian Science for the three main findings after several years of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic was (a) positive (g = 0.18) and statistically significant (p = 0.032) on the Stanford-10 science assessment and (b) positive for both Reading (g = 0.10) and Math (g = 0.16), meaning students in the treatment group performed better than the control group, but the effects were not statistically significant. Teachers were generally positive in terms of the professional development provided, and feedback on the module logs largely supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity of implementation. Classroom observations further supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity to inquiry-based practices in treatment classrooms (e.g., use of experiential hands-on learning and level of class time dedicated to inquiry-based science). With instructional time for science lagging other subject areas, and as learning recovery in reading and math after COVID-19 receive national attention, the results demonstrate that ongoing, differentiated, high-quality professional learning and high-quality instructional materials for science instruction can support student achievement in science, math, and reading.

Mastery learning -- the process by which students must demonstrate proficiency with a single topic before moving on -- is well recognized as one of the best ways to learn, yet many teachers struggle or remain unsure about how to implement it into a classroom setting. This study leverages two field experiments to test the efficacy of a program designed to encourage greater mastery learning through technology and proactive continuous teacher support. Focusing on elementary and middle school mathematics, teachers receive weekly coaching in how to use Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) for students to follow a customized roadmap of incremental progress. Results indicate significant intent-to-treat effects on math performance of 0.12-0.22 standard deviations. Further analysis shows that these gains are concentrated among students in classrooms with at least an average of 35 minutes of practice per week. Teachers able to achieve high-dosage practice have a high degree of initial buy-in, a clear implementation strategy for when practice occurs, and a willingness to closely monitor progress and follow-up with struggling students. [The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame provided additional support for this research.]

This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against students in other countries can not only confirm the rigor of the MCAS, but the comparison can also provide meaning to MCAS scores and ensure that they accurately measure student performance. There are two primary international exams given at regular intervals: (1) the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS); and (2) the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The strong performance on the international exams across several years and subjects, especially on TIMSS, confirmed the quality of Massachusetts K-12 schools.

This brief continues ongoing research by NWEA® examining the degree to which the COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated school closures, influenced student learning. Prior research focused on math and reading and found that the pandemic's negative impact steadily accumulated during the 2020-2021 school year, with significant disparities in achievement and growth compared to prepandemic trends (Lewis, Kuhfeld, Ruzek, & McEachin, 2021). Although there were modest rebounds in reading and math during the 2021-2022 school year, progress toward pandemic recovery largely stalled in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, with achievement and growth trends still trailing behind prepandemic levels (Kuhfeld & Lewis, 2022; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2023; Lewis & Kuhfeld, 2024). Building on previous research series focused on math and reading achievement, this brief explores how the pandemic influenced student achievement in science. It examines science test scores across seven school years to understand how COVID-19 influenced science achievement.

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share detailed results and more fully describe the sample and methods used to produce the research brief, "COVID's Impact on Science Achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024. We investigated three main research questions in this brief: 1) How did science achievement in 2021 and 2024 compare to achievement in 2019, before the pandemic? 2) How much additional schooling was required in spring 2021 and spring 2024 to return to spring 2019 levels? 3) How do these patterns differ by race/ethnicity?

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the implementation and impact of the IDEA Public Schools' Mathematics Curriculum Redesign (MCR) effort, funded by an Innovation and Research (EIR) grant. Methods: The study used a quasi-experimental matching design to examine the effect of MCR on student achievement outcomes. The study compared outcomes between the two cohorts of students at IDEA Public Schools that piloted the MCR and matched cohorts of students in IDEA schools that had delayed implementation of MCR. Results:?The study found statistically significant differences in IDEA Geometry test scores (ES = 0.39) between treatment and comparison group students in Grade 9 and on AP Calculus exam scores between treatment and comparison group students in Grade 12 (ES = 0.57). The study also found that the MCR program met the evaluation threshold for fidelity of implementation for the two out of three key program components (development of redesigned math curriculum and teacher use of math curriculum) in some years. The program did not meet the evaluation threshold for fidelity of implementation for the third key program components (teacher training and professional development to use redesigned math curriculum) in any of the years. Implications:?Because curriculum development and implementation are ongoing and iterative, realizing all of the benefits is not immediate and may take more time to achieve desired results. Continuous improvement of the curriculum and consistent supports to teachers will contribute to continued benefits for teachers and students while moving toward reaching anticipated student outcomes.

Logical predictions about relationships between school aptitude and standardized achievement, aptitude and teachers' grades, and teachers' grades and standardized achievement can be made from the literature. These predictions are that (1) conventional school aptitude measures should predict standardized achievement test scores equally well for boys and girls but better for advantaged than disadvantaged children; (2) teachers' marks are more accurate for girls than for boys when judged against the sexes' standardized achievement test scores; are more accurate for middle-class than for disadvantaged children; and are least accurate for disadvantaged black males; and (3) teachers consistently give girls higher grades than boys but there are no important differences between boys' and girls' achievement when measured by standard achievement tests. The present study was conducted to test the strength of the relationships between pupil aptitude, standardized achievement and teachers' grades and to determine the percent of variance in grade point average accounted for by aptitude and standardized achievement in a representative sample of fifth- and ninth-grade Mexican-American, Black and Anglo students. (Author/RC)

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Houston area, causing the homelessness of nearly 24,000 students in the Houston Independent School District (Houston ISD) alone. Additionally, nearly all Houston ISD schools sustained damage of some kind, resulting in school closures, campus relocations, and even the delaying of the start of classes for some students. In the first brief of this two-part series, the authors examine the characteristics of students who became homeless due to Harvey. They found that students who became temporarily homeless for a year or less due to Harvey tended to fare as well as or better on educational outcomes than even their never-homeless peers.

Math fact fluency--the ability to quickly and accurately recall basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts--is a foundational mathematical skill. "Zaner-Bloser Building Fact Fluency (BFF)" was designed to build students' conceptual understanding of arithmetic operations and increase procedural fluency among elementary school students, with the goal of strengthening math learning. LXD Research conducted a study to examine Grade 3 students' math proficiency levels on the standardized Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) across five "Building Fact Fluency" participating schools and 20 similar Iowa comparison schools from spring 2021-spring 2023. One "Building Fact Fluency" pilot school began the program in fall 2021, and four additional schools began the program in fall of 2022. The pilot "Building Fact Fluency" school, Year 2-only "Building Fact Fluency" schools, and comparison schools had a similar percentage of students on grade level at baseline. However, Grade 3 students in "Building Fact Fluency" schools showed consistently greater improvements in the percentage of Grade 3 students on grade level in math.

This study examined the impact of Classworks® Individualized Learning math instruction on second-grade students performing below the 25th percentile in math. The research, conducted during the 2021-2022 school year, involved 1,367 students from 45 schools across seven districts. A quasi-experimental design compared 941 students who had any use of Classworks (treatment group) with 426 students who did not (comparison group). Students in both the treatment and comparison groups completed the Classworks Math Universal Screener assessments at the beginning and end of the school year. The study employed linear modeling with adjustments for clustering, baseline achievement, and district fixed effects. Results showed that Classworks users scored an average of 5.17 points higher on the spring math assessment compared to non-users, with an effect size of 0.13. Treatment group students engaged with the program for an average of 11 minutes per week over 30 instructional weeks. These findings suggest that Classworks Individualized Learning math instruction has a positive impact on the math performance for struggling second-grade students, even with modest time investment. Educators may consider implementing such personalized, technology-based interventions to support students performing below grade level in mathematics. Future research could explore the program's long-term effects and its impact on different student subgroups. The study includes tables presenting baseline equivalence statistics and model-based results, along with references supporting the methodology and context of the research.

Recent years have produced a surge in interest in improving state assessment programs. Many states are designing new assessments. Much of this innovation is aimed at addressing longstanding areas of unhappiness with typical domain-sampled, end-of-year state assessments: States want to streamline assessment activities, enhance the instructional utility of assessment results, and improve assessment experiences for students. Designing and redesigning state assessment to meet these goals often involves working quickly to meet legislated timelines or legislative turnover. And working quickly often means that good practices--particularly those related to iterative design and program evaluation--can be overlooked. Without a systematic and robust process of designing and evaluating these programs, educators and policymakers risk losing critical insights into what works well, what's going wrong, and why. This paper presents a framework that state education leaders can use to design and evaluate an innovative assessment program.

There were 42 Teach for America (TFA) members who had student schedules in both the October 2022 and February 2023 periods. Of those, 33 teachers instructed grades and subjects where students participated in the statewide assessment. The goal of this Research Brief is to estimate the instructional effectiveness of the TFA members in 2022-2023 as compared to that of other teachers in the District by examining how well students who were taught by TFA members performed academically compared to other Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) students.

This memorandum provides information pertinent to the participation and performance of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations for 2023 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). In 2023, 59.3% of MCPS graduates took one or more AP exams; 17.3 percentage points more than graduates in Maryland and 24.6 percentage points more than graduates in the nation. Additionally, 46.1 % of the 2023 MCPS graduates earned a score of 3 or higher on at least one AP exam, while 27.4% of graduates in the State of Maryland and 21.7% of graduates in the nation earned an AP score of 3 or higher.

Statewide annual assessments are designed to help guide educational decisions by evaluating student growth and learning so resources can be equitably distributed. They also provide valuable individual results that summarize how each student is progressing against grade-level academic standards, identify additional ways their school system can support their academic success, and allow families to demand appropriate actions from their education leaders. This report offers guidance on how schools can better communicate the results of students' federally required annual tests so parents can be better informed about how their students are doing in school and work with educators to get appropriate support. Specifically, this brief: (1) Calls for individual assessment reporting results to be integrated into existing communications with families; (2) Highlights the role that trusted voices play in communicating this information; (3) Identifies best practices for designing individual score reports for students and families; and (4) Offers promising strategies and policy recommendations that advocates can push for to improve assessment reporting at the state level.

This report outlines the results of the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in England. PIRLS is an international comparative study directed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The aim of PIRLS is to assess and compare the reading performance of pupils in their fourth year of formal schooling across participating countries. 57 countries took part in PIRLS 2021 and this is the national report for England.

This study investigates the impact of the MindPlay Reading program on student literacy achievement in Dayton City Schools, Ohio, during the 2021-2022 academic year. A correlational analysis was conducted in collaboration with LXD Research to examine the relationship between MindPlay usage and student outcomes on literacy assessments. The sample included 3,444 students in grades 2-6, with 66% identifying as Black, 33% as White, and 13% as English Language Learners (ELL). Student progress was measured using MindPlay's internal assessments and NWEA MAP Growth, a standardized reading assessment that generates Rasch unIT (RIT) scores. Results indicated a positive correlation between increased usage of MindPlay Reading and higher Spring RIT scores. Students who engaged with the program for at least 60 hours (approximately 20 minutes per day) demonstrated above-average growth, closing critical skill gaps. MindPlay Reading, a digital literacy intervention with video instruction and interactive practice, offers a comprehensive approach to phoneme awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. This research supports the program's effectiveness in promoting significant literacy gains in diverse student populations.

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Heggerty Bridge to Reading program for first-grade students compared to a business-as-usual reading program by employing a mixed-methods approach encompassing a matched quasi-experimental design, teacher surveys, and interviews. In light of the learning disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the study underscores the necessity of explicit reading instruction, with a focus on phonemic awareness and systematic phonics. Results indicate that the Bridge to Reading program, integrating phonemic awareness lessons with daily explicit phonics instruction, significantly improves student achievement on MAP Growth and MAP Fluency formative assessments, leading to higher RIT scores and growth compared to the control group. Analysis of student subgroups reveals significant progress among lower-achieving students, indicating effective support in bridging foundational reading skill gaps from kindergarten. Moreover, the program surpasses the comparison group in meeting projected growth targets, with a greater proportion of students reaching their mid-year growth target. Feedback from educators in the treatment group underscores positive perceptions, with teachers reporting enhanced understanding of reading methods and alignment with literacy development. The study also examines demographic factors and baseline scores, revealing significant impacts in areas such as phonological awareness, phonics, and word recognition. Additionally, the study outlines future steps, including qualitative data collection and end-of-year quantitative analysis, to further elucidate the program's efficacy. These preliminary findings suggest that the Bridge to Reading program holds promise in bolstering student achievement in foundational reading skills, particularly amidst the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. [This report was published with Heggerty.]

It is well understood that when students are experiencing hunger, their ability to learn suffers. What is less understood is why this is the case and the role of the learning environment. Using Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 data, this brief examines how student hunger is correlated with how disorderly the classroom environment is during math lessons. Even though the data does not allow the unpacking of why students come to school hungry, the authors found a consistent relationship between hunger and disorderly classroom environment, without any exception, across 38 TIMSS 2019 participating countries. This relationship holds even after controlling differences in student and classroom socioeconomic status, class size, teacher experience, and educational attainment. These findings suggest that when students come to school hungry, they have a harder time paying attention and regulating their behavior. This can result in a disorderly and less effective learning environment for all students, even those not experiencing hunger.

With growing demand for online courses, it is important to assess the efficacy of quality online virtual instruction. This study investigates the impact of Edmentum's Courseware Algebra I on student achievement using data on 1,205 ninth-grade students from a large urban school district in the Midwest during the 2020-2021 school year. Utilizing a quasi-experimental design, the study compares the NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Mathematics scores of students participating in online virtual instruction to those receiving traditional in-person instruction. The study findings reveal that students in the online Algebra I course demonstrated significantly higher mathematics achievement than their peers in in-person classes, with an effect size of 0.13. The positive outcomes associated with Courseware Algebra I highlight its potential as an effective option for high school students.

It is now well established that the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating and unequal impact on student achievement. Test score declines were disproportionately large for historically marginalized students, exacerbating preexisting achievement gaps and threatening educational and economic inequality. In this paper, we use longitudinal student-level NWEA MAP Growth test data to estimate differences in test score declines for students at different points on the prepandemic test distribution. We also test the extent to which students' schools and districts accounted for these differences in declines. We find significant differences in learning loss by baseline achievement, with lower-achieving student's scores dropping 0.100 SD more in math and 0.113 SD more in reading than higher-achieving students' scores. We additionally show that the school a student attended accounts for about three-quarters of this widening gap in math achievement and about one-third in reading. The findings suggest school and district-level policies may have mattered more for learning loss than individual students' experiences within schools and districts. Such nuanced information regarding the variation in the pandemic's impacts on students is critical for policymakers and practitioners designing targeted academic interventions and for tracking disparities in academic recovery. [Additional funding for this report was provided by Kenneth C. Griffin.]

This study explored the impact of the 95 Phonics Core Program® (95 PCP) on student literacy achievement across third graders who started the school year at different ability levels. The primary focus of this report was to investigate the relationship between changes in phonics scores with the beginning and end-of-year i-Ready® assessments and outcomes on State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®). To this end, i-Ready scores were collected from 4 elementary schools in the Southside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, during the 2022-2023 academic school year. Third graders from all schools were aggregated by beginning-of-year (BOY) placement level in terms of grade-level skills (kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade). Outcomes were expressed in terms of gains on scale scores and performance levels in STAAR. The analysis compared EOY performance levels for students who grew different amounts in their phonics skills during the school year. The analysis progressed through the following questions, each adding a piece to the overall picture.

Because standardized tests in science are not given to PreK-3 students in Ohio, this report examined the longitudinal effects of learning from a teacher who had participated in the NURTURES professional development program. Specifically, it looked at the effects on students' mathematics and reading learning in grades 2-5 and science learning in 5th grade in 2017. Students who were in 5th grade at that time could have had a NURTURES-trained teacher at any time between kindergarten and 3rd grade. Thus, the study followed students up to 5 years after having a NURTURES teacher. The sample included the population of students enrolled in the 41 elementary schools in the Toledo Public School District. Students who never learned from a teacher who participated in NURTURES served as the control group. The data came from the 2017 administration of the Ohio Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) (NWEA, 2019) for mathematics and reading and the Ohio Achievement Test in Science for science (Ohio Achievement Assessment, 2015). The total number of students from these schools who took the May 2017 reading MAP was 6759 and the total number who took mathematics was 6703. The number of those students who had at least one NURTURES teacher was 2801 (41.4%) for reading and 2707 (41.6%) for mathematics. Analysis of the reading scores showed 2.14 advantage points for NURTURES students as compared to the average non-intervention student to an annual growth rate of 7.02 units (p < .001). The treatment effect size (Hedges' g) was 0.12. For mathematics there were 1.55 advantage points to an annual growth rate estimated to be 8.17 units (p < .001) as compared to the average non-intervention student. The treatment effect size (Hedges' g) was 0.09. Analysis of the 5th grade Ohio Achievement Science Subtest showed that students associated with at least one NURTURES-trained teacher was modeled to have a 5.86 advantage points as compared to the average non-intervention student. The treatment effect size (Hedges' g) was 0.08, which is to be interpreted as a treatment group having, on average, 0.08 higher scores in standard deviation units as compared to the scores of the control cohort. When compared with our earlier evaluation report (2016; revised in 2018), we see that students who had a NURTURES-trained teacher, on average, continued to show greater gains compared to students who did not. In addition, the achievement gaps between non-minority and minority students in reading and mathematics were reduced when the minority students had a NURTURES-trained teacher and the non-minority students did not. In science, the impact of the intervention roughly compensated for the attainment gap between boys and girls and partially ameliorated the gap between minority and non-minority children's scores associated with these demographic factors. [Published May 6, 2020 with minor revisions based in WWC inquiries published January 5, 2024.]

Student well-being has emerged as a topic of considerable interest to researchers and educators. Recent work has sought to examine relationships between measures of student well-being and other constructs such as academic achievement, physical health, relationships with peers, and engagement in learning. Reading assessment and context questionnaire data available through PIRLS 2021 can be used to add to these conversations. This report begins with a brief discussion of relevant research literature--including how student well-being is defined, as well as the relationships between well-being and other factors of interest. PIRLS 2021 was not designed to measure student well-being explicitly and does not provide a comprehensive well-being measure. However, the PIRLS 2021 Student Questionnaire collected data for several measures that can serve as indicators for this complex construct. This report presents these indicators and their relationships to students' reading achievement. The results are discussed in light of existing research on student well-being, as well as factors unique to PIRLS 2021. These discussions form the basis for a more complex analysis that integrates the individual indicators to describe multidimensional profiles related to students' well-being. The report concludes with key findings and directions for further exploration of student well-being in future cycles of PIRLS.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) has been monitoring international trends in reading achievement among fourth-grade students for 25 years. As a critical point in a student's education, the fourth year of schooling establishes the foundations of literacy, with reading becoming increasingly central to learning across all subjects. PIRLS 2026 represents a significant milestone in the assessment's history by completing the transition to a fully digital reading assessment. This move reflects PIRLS' commitment to leading the field and staying relevant in an era where digital literacy is essential for every child's education. By embracing the digital reading assessment format, PIRLS 2026 aims to create an engaging, authentic assessment experience that aligns with young learners' daily digital reading practices. Additionally, technology enhances assessment practices, including more efficient data collection, innovative test design, and automated scoring. The PIRLS 2026 Assessment Frameworks consist of three chapters covering major assessment components: (1) Reading Assessment Framework (Chapter 1): Describes the aspects of reading literacy assessed in PIRLS; (2) Contextual Framework (Chapter 2): Addresses topics covered in the PIRLS 2026 context questionnaires and Encyclopedia; and (3) Assessment Design (Chapter 3): Presents the rationale and procedures for the groupadaptive assessment design. Updates to the PIRLS 2026 framework chapters involved contributions from National Research Coordinators (NRCs) in participating countries and from experts at partner institutions who assisted in developing item drafts and framework chapters. Their input informed new constructs of interest for the questionnaires, ensuring the frameworks remain relevant for measuring and reporting on reading achievement over time. Expert committees--the Reading Development Group (RDG) and Questionnaire Development Group (QDG)--guided revisions based on evolving theories and policy-focused research.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, causing one of the largest disruptions to schooling in history. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges for education research and large-scale assessments of student populations. Both schools and researchers were forced to modify their usual practices to protect the health and safety of students and other members of school communities. Disruptions to data collection processes can be especially problematic in large-scale international assessments that study trends within and across countries, such as PIRLS 2021. This report provides researchers with an overview of information about the COVID-19 pandemic that is available through the PIRLS 2021 data. As noted in the PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading, neither PIRLS 2021 data nor any other cross-sectional international large-scale assessment can be used to make causal inferences about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' reading achievement, such as "learning loss." However, PIRLS 2021 offers rich contextual information about students' instruction and learning during the pandemic, including their home and school environments and the broader national education systems. The immense disruptions to schooling worldwide during the pandemic period are also important to keep in mind when interpreting the PIRLS 2021 results. This report begins by describing how the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated modifications to the original plans for the PIRLS 2021 assessment, which have implications for interpreting PIRLS 2021 results. The report continues with an overview of the different types of contextual data related to the COVID-19 pandemic that are included in the PIRLS 2021 International Database. COVID-related items from the PIRLS 2021 home and school questionnaires and their international average results are presented. Information about COVID-19 available in the "PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia" and some key themes are also presented. Finally, the report concludes with key takeaways for researchers wishing to use PIRLS 2021 data.