In the coming years, states will need to make the most significant changes to their assessment systems in a decade as they implement the Common Core State Standards, a common framework for what students are expected to know that will replace existing standards in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The Common Core effort has prompted concerns about the cost of implementing the new standards and assessments, but there is little comprehensive up-to-date information on the costs of assessment systems currently in place throughout the country.
This report fills this void by providing the most current, comprehensive evidence on state-level costs of assessment systems, based on new data from state contracts with testing vendors assembled by the Brown Center on Education Policy. These data cover a combined $669 million in annual spending on assessments in 45 states.
The report identifies state collaboration on assessments as a clear strategy for achieving cost savings without compromising test quality. For example, a state with 100,000 students that joins a consortium of states containing one million students is predicted to save 37 percent, or $1.4 million per year; a state of 500,000 students saves an estimated 25 percent, or $3.9 million, by joining the same consortium.
Collaborating to form assessment consortia is the strategy being pursued by nearly all of the states that have adopted the Common Core standards. But it is not yet clear how these common assessments will be sustained after federal funding for their development ends in 2014, months before the tests are fully implemented. The report identifies a lack of transparency in assessment pricing as a barrier to states making informed decisions regarding their testing systems, and recommends that consortia of states use their market power to encourage test-makers to divulge more details about their pricing models.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy, Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans
More than a decade of research has established the strongest possible links between middle school violence and gender norms. Learning to enact masculinity and femininity and being publicly acknowledged as a young man or woman is a major rite of passage for nearly every adolescent or teen. This can be especially true during the "gender intensification" years of ages 9-13, when interest in traditional gender norms intensifies, and belief in them solidifies. Yet the language of school violence often obscures the importance of gender norms. "Bullying" sounds like a problem of individual acts by singular malefactors. "Sexual harassment" sounds like sexual coercion or pressure being applied, yet adolescent bullying is almost never about sex per se. "Homophobic harassment" addresses straight-on-gay attacks, and references common taunts like "That's so gay" and "You're a fag." Although straight harassment of LGBTQ students is serious and pervasive, most middle schooling harassment of this type is straight males victimizing peers. And not only because only a small minority of middle school students are (or are perceived to be) gay.
Gendered Harassment -- Indeed, middle school bullying might be more accurately termed "gendered harassment"--which seeks to promote masculinity in boys and femininity in girls, keep girls in subordinate positions, regulate girls' bodies, and punish unmanliness in boys. Despite this, prominent school violence programs and policies largely ignore the role of gender norms. This overview report covers the basics of gender norms, and the links to school bullying, sexual and online harassment, and homophobic epithets.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Education and Literacy;Science;Women
Science, technology, engineering and math: for many students, especially young women, achievement in the "STEM" subjects will be the key to high growth rates, higher paying jobs and career advancement in the knowledge economy.
Yet for years girls have under-performed at these subjects: dropping out early, expressing low interest, opting out of STEM degrees in college and out of STEM careers as college grads. There's even a name for this: the "leaky pipeline."
It's not that girls can't achieve. In fact, girls not only score as well as boys in elementary school, but in societies abroad where math and science achievement is valued equally in both sexes, they continue to do well throughout their educational careers.
Nor is it just the result of patriarchal school systems. Millions have been invested in improving a host of external education variables of this nature that may be holding girls back: hostility in the computer room, lack of female role models, masculine pedagogical models, etc. In some cases, high schools have even refused to let girls drop STEM classes, which has only succeeded in delaying the problem until they matriculate.
What could be causing elementary school girls who excel at math and who love science, to suddenly lose all interest or develop low grades in these subjects in late adolescence and early teens?
One important and under-explored answers is feminine gender norms. As girls age, they internalize gender norms that force them to make a choice between excelling at STEM or being feminine. And STEM loses.
This report documents the existing literature and surveys the problem in depth, including new results of new focus group studies with young women of color.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy
Almost two decades of research have crystallized strong links between academic under-achievement, Zero Tolerance and similar "pushout" policies, and narrow codes of masculinity.
Learning to enact traditional codes of masculinity is a major rite of passage for nearly every adolescent and teenage boy. Yet this imperative often puts them directly at odds with school disciplinary systems, especially in urban environments
Unfortunately, boys don't display masculinity by sitting quietly in class, being respectful of teachers, obeying adult authority figures, observing all the rules, and turning in homework regularly -- a set of behaviors, which, taken together, are a pretty good prescription for ostracism, bullying or harassment at many middle-schools.
On the contrary, boys learn to impress peers, establish dominance hierarchies, and create social status by exemplifying traditional masculine attributes of strength, toughness, individualism, and aggression. In practice this means being boisterous, taking risks, breaking rules, defying adult authority figures, withstanding punishment silently, and generally disdaining book-learning as weak, feminine, or gay.
Such findings point to two great systems in blind and often disastrous collision: an urban male "gender culture" which demands that adolescent boys master public displays of traditional masculinity, and school systems inclined to view precisely those displays as oppositional and threatening, a cause for constant surveillance and punishment, and markers of eventual failure or probable incarceration.
This paper provides an overview of the current research and findings on the impact of gender codes -- especially masculinty -- and high rates of drop-outs and push-outs among at-risk youth.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Civil Society;Education and Literacy;Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Examines how many low-income students and students of color complete neither the courses required to apply to a four-year public university nor career technical education courses. Calls for integrated, equitable approaches to college and career readiness.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Western) / California
Education and Literacy;Government Reform;Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Offers a framework for designing and implementing state accountability systems that enable consistent, aligned goals to ensure college- and career-readiness; valid measurement, support, and interventions; transparent reporting; and continuous improvement.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Outlines discussions about the potential and challenges of competency-based learning in transforming the current time-based system, including issues of accountability, equity, personalization, and aligning policy and practice. Includes case summaries.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Highlights early outcomes of school reform efforts launched under a new state law with support from the Race to the Top program, including progress in turnaround schools, charter schools, and innovation schools. Outlines challenges and recommendations.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-Massachusetts
