AIR Experts Contribute to U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Report on the Future of Data in K-12 Education
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has released the first comprehensive review of existing quantitative research and qualitative feedback on federal K-12 education policies from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The report, "Looking Back to Look Forward: Quantitative and Qualitative Reviews of the Past 20 Years of K-12 Education Assessment and Accountability Policy," provides a comprehensive analysis of current trends, best practices, and emerging technologies related to data usage in K-12 education.
AIR’s Dan Goldhaber and Michael DeArmond of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at AIR authored the quantitative research review included in the report. The most credible existing studies they identified found that:
- Disaggregated data and requirements for transparency moved the system to consider the needs of individual student groups, including students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, English learners, and students with special needs, helping to ensure that students—and their families—who our education system had long under-served could not be ignored. States, districts, and schools were no longer able to hide the performance of some students behind an average.
- Student achievement increased due to NCLB-era assessment and accountability policies, especially in math and for student groups that the system had not been serving well.
- Reforms in teacher evaluation and school turnaround initiatives did not consistently improve student outcomes at scale, in part due to significant variation in design and the quality of implementation.
In addition, the report examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of data in K-12 education, and highlights best practices for data collection and analysis. Read the report on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation website.
