Academic Standards

This report is the second of a three-part Pioneer Institute series of studies on summer enrichment programs with a particular focus on opportunities for disadvantaged students. It highlights best practices in the field by profiling a range of summer programs. The authors urge summer enrichment programs to partner with entities that help place disadvantaged children in educational programs to help the schools and non-profits recruit students. They also urge programs run by schools to use academic-year faculty.

A survey of more than 70 Massachusetts private and parochial schools found that most offer academically-oriented summer programs, which have been found to prevent summer learning loss and can help close the achievement gap among student groups. The survey is the first of a three-part study that will yield a comprehensive guide to summer enrichment programs in the commonwealth.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a report, Evaluating the Content and Quality of Next Generation Assessments, ostensibly an evaluative comparison of four testing programs, the Common Core-derived SBAC and PARCC, ACT’s Aspire, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ MCAS.  The latest Fordham Institute Common Core apologia is not so much research as a caricature of it.

Author and career testing expert Dr. Richard Phelps writes that adopting PARCC would result in a one-half year drop in performance expectations for 4th grade math and reading, and 8th grade math, in Massachusetts. He also argues that critics of MCAS misunderstand its intended purpose, and explains why this is problematic.

A resurgence of interest in civic virtue and a new emphasis on teaching civics in our schools is needed in our country. Teachers need opportunities beyond college to learn the intricacies of government and how to teach it. Pioneer Institute reached out to four professional development programs with nationally known reputations to learn more about their offerings.

This report concludes that revising and updating MCAS would result in lower costs and more rigorous assessments that would provide better information about student performance than adopting PARCC. 

Massachusetts’ draft pre-K through introductory high school Science and Technology / Engineering standards contain such startling gaps in science that they should be withdrawn from consideration.

This report provides the historical background and interpretive analysis needed to understand controversies surrounding Common Core and its associated tests.

In-depth analysis of how the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) provides high-quality education to more than 84,000 eligible Military-Connected Children in more than 190 schools around the world and scores above the national averages on nearly all standardized assessments. This report also examines efforts to expand that success to Military-Connected Children attending non-DoDEA schools.

The Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) continues its advocacy for Common Core and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a federally funded testing consortium, with the release of a study concluding that Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) performance is not an indicator of preparedness for higher education success.