ERN Highlights: 2020 in Review

This year has been trying for so many of us. The onset of the coronavirus pandemic has made what we do more necessary than ever before. To illustrate the need for this continued work, we are rounding up some of our top highlights from 2020—helping to increase COVID-19 relief funding in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief,

Trends in Innovative Assessment Pilots Reveal Opportunities for Actionable Data as well as Equity Concerns

By Nicholas Munyan-Penney Overview The Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) is one of the many provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) designed to give states more flexibility around K-12 accountability as compared to ESSA’s predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Thus far, four states—Georgia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina—have been

Innovative Assessment Pilot: Georgia’s Georgia MAP and Navvy Assessments

By Nicholas Munyan-Penney and Charles Barone Georgia is one of the first four states to be approved to participate in the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Districts participating in the state’s pilot are free of federal requirements that the same summative assessments be administered in math and English

Social Mobility Elevators

By James Murphy Higher education remains an important driver of social mobility in America. Everyone benefits when low-income and working-class students enroll in and complete postsecondary training. Those with postsecondary degrees earn more, are more likely to be employed, and pay more in taxes. Racial inequities in employment and income increasingly even out where there

“Pandemic Pods” For All: The Promise of High Dosage Tutoring

By Nicholas Munyan-Penney and Charles Barone With more than half of U.S. K-12 students enrolled in districts providing no in-person instruction, and many more districts considering moving to all-remote learning due to spiking COVID-19 infection rates—including recent closures in NY, CO, and CA—pressures are mounting on parents to find ways to guide, support, and supplement

Innovative Assessment Pilot: Louisiana’s LEAP 2025 Humanities Assessment

By Nicholas Munyan-Penney and Charles Barone Read the full report here. ———————————– Louisiana is one of the first four states to be approved to participate in the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Districts participating in the state’s pilot are free of federal requirements that the same summative assessments

NH and NC Forge Ahead with Innovative Assessments Amid the Pandemic

By Nicholas Munyan-Penney Since releasing our briefs outlining innovative assessment pilots in New Hampshire and North Carolina earlier this year, the pandemic has upended assessments with states cancelling spring 2020 testing. These cancellations had the potential to seriously impede the progress of developing and scaling up new assessment systems being conducted under the Innovative Assessment

ERN CT – Aug. 2020 Primary: Social Pressure RCT + VBM Preliminary Results

Social Pressure RCT Education Reform Now implemented an experiment to test the ability of social pressure GOTV text messaging to increase the turnout of eligible voters in the CT Primary, held on Aug 11, 2020. The full universe comprised approximately 198,000 registered in CT who did not vote in the 2018 Primary and registered before

Pell No! New Data on Colleges That Under-Enroll Talented, Working Class Students

By James Murphy The Department of Education has released new data on college enrollment, including the number of undergraduate students at each university who received a Pell Grant. In 2018-19, almost 7 million college students received a Pell Grant, which typically goes to individuals from households earning less than $65,000 per year. That’s almost half

Opinion: Expand college students’ role in voting

Note: This op-ed first appeared on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Voter suppression efforts continue in Georgia and beyond. Last month, Georgia’s flagship university, funded by a Republican state legislature and governor, announced it was closing campus polling places ostensibly due to concerns about COVID-19 transmission. But the university made clear football games would go forward, because