Top US students decline, bottom students improve on international PISA math test
Distribution of scores in mathematics in PISA 2003 through 2012, by percentiles PISA 2012 Change in percentiles between 2003 and 2012 (PISA 2012 – PISA 2003) Percentiles 10th 25th 75th 90th 10th 25th 75th 90th Score Score Score Score Score dif. Score dif. Score dif. Score dif. United States 368 418 543 600 11 […]
U.S. private school students not much better than public school students in math
In the 2012 international test that measures what 15-year-old students know, called PISA, private school students did only a smidgen better than public school students on the math test. Almost seven percent of American 15-year-olds attend private school and they scored an average of 486, only four points more than the average public school student, […]
Men more likely than women to quit science or math in college
A new statistical analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics sheds some light on why so few Americans pursue STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in college. “Some 28 percent of beginning bachelor’s degree students and 20 percent of beginning associate’s degree students entered a STEM field at some point during their enrollment […]
Low income students show smaller gains within Washington DC’s NAEP test score surge
I remain obsessed with trying to understand the gigantic seven point surge in scores that Washington DC posted on the 2013 NAEP national assessment, which I first reported on Nov. 7, 2013. Last week, on Nov. 15th, I broke the test data down by race and noticed that while black scores did improve, the seven […]
Is gentrification in Washington DC driving the surge in test scores?
As I wrote on Nov. 7, 2103, Washington DC posted the one of the strongest test score gains in the nation on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress and I wanted to look at how demographic shifts in the nation’s capital might be influencing these test results. I began by constructing this table. […]
Arizona, Wisconsin and Colorado have the highest concentrations of charter schools in the nation
I was just looking at some updated “State Education Reform” statistics from the National Center of Education Statistics and was trying to make sense of the numbers of charter schools in each state. California has the most charter schools by far at 908, but it’s also the most populous state. So I decided to rank […]
Data Debate: Smartest U.S. states don’t hold a candle to global competitors
On Oct. 24, 2013, Julia Ryan wrote in The Atlantic that American Education isn’t Mediocre — It’s Deeply Unequal, after digesting new test score data that rank U.S. states among other nations. “Students in Massachusetts are doing great compared to their international peers, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Students in Alabama, Mississippi, […]
No connection between income and public pre-K in New York State
A new graphic shows how uneven public pre-K is throughout the state of New York. The school districts shaded in dark green are where more than 75% of the 4 year olds attend a universal pre-K program funded by the state. In the Clifton-Fine school district, only 25% of the children are poor, but 100% […]
Unclear where U.S. students stand in math and science
I don’t know what to make of a long-awaited report issued Oct. 24, 2013 by the National Center of Education Statistics showing that most U.S. eighth grade students are not at the bottom of the global barrel when it comes to math and science. The study extrapolates what students in every state in the Union would […]
A data-driven argument to reduce testing in schools
The U.S. is off to a bad start when it comes to using data to improve schools, concludes a National Education Policy Center October 2013 report entitled Data Driven Improvement and Accountability by Andy Hargreaves and Henry Braun of Boston College. The authors urge U.S. policy makers to reduce the amount of testing in schools and to measure student […]
