U.S. Department of Education Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993-2007. From 1993 to 2007, the percentage of students enrolled in assigned public schools decreased from 80% to 73%, while the percentage of students enrolled in chosen public schools increased from 11% to 16%. In 2007, about 2% of students in grades 1 through 12 were enrolled in charter schools, and about 2.9% of all students ages 5 through 17 were home schooled, most of them on a full-time basis. About 50% of students had parents who reported that public school choice was available, and 27% had parents who reported that they had moved to their neighborhood for the child’s school. Between 2003 and 2007, the percentage of students in chosen public schools who attended their parents’ first-choice school increased from 83% to 88%. Read report
Brookings Institution 2009 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning? Fourth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were unchanged from 2007 to 2009. Eighth-grade scores were up a little. However, in the context of the 19-year history of the test and comparing the latest scores with results from other tests, the trend, which began sometime around 1998 or 1999, is historically unprecedented and extends across subjects (reading and math), grades (fourth and eighth), and tests (long-term trend and main NAEP). Read report
The Education Trust Stuck Schools: A Framework for Identifying Schools Where Students Need Change—Now! Schools often lumped together as “low performing” are not all alike. Some low-performing schools remain “stuck” year after year, while others that started as low performers are among the fastest improvers in their states. Tracking proficiency rates and improvement over time can help policymakers focus scarce resources on the neediest schools. Read report
Professional development for secondary career and technical education: Implications for change. Louisville, KY: National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, University of Louisville. After a quarter century of education reform, the essential role of the teacher is receiving the attention it deserves. Standards have been raised, testing has been mandated, principals have gained increased autonomy, schedules have been revised, computers have become widely available. None of these changes has as much impact as ensuring that teachers have the skills and knowledge to identify their students’ leaning needs and the ability to deliver instruction that responds to those needs. In this paper, the implications of this statement for the professional development of secondary-level career and technical education (CTE) teachers are examined and the evidence upon which it is based is cited. Read report
Common Postsecondary Data Dictionary for Perkins Accountability. National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, University of Louisville, and MPR Associates, Inc, (April 2010). Many states maintain sophisticated, longitudinal data systems that contain detailed, student-level data on postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) participants. Designed for administrative use and institutional research purposes, these systems contain comprehensive data on student coursetaking, achievement, and programmatic outcomes. Read report
