February 25, 2009
In the 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education, Tom Loveless closely examines the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), student achievement in the nation's largest urban school districts, and the trend of placing unprepared eighth-graders into algebra and other advanced math classes.
October 22, 2008
From 1990 to 2007, national enrollment in algebra courses soared from 16 percent to more than 30 percent of all eighth graders. What effect has increasing algebra enrollments had on students and teachers? On October 22, the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion of this trend, documented in the recent report, "The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth Grade Algebra."
September 22, 2008
More U.S. eighth grade students take algebra today than any other math course. However, universal eighth grade algebra is creating more problems than it solves, writes Tom Loveless, as some 120,000 middle-schoolers are now struggling in advanced classes for which they are woefully unprepared.
December 11, 2007
The 2007 Brown Center Report on American Education examines how well American students are learning in math and reading, the enrollment patterns in private and public schools, and whether more time spent learning math increases achievement. Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy, authors this report.
October 2006
The 2006 Brown Center Report on American Education evaluates the role that student happiness and confidence play in achievement, and examines whether states are artificially inflating the number of students meeting proficiency standards mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
November 2004
The 2004 Brown Center Report analyzes the difficulty of items on the math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), examines the content training of middle school math teachers, and evaluates the Blue Ribbon Schools Program.
October 2003
The 2003 Brown Center Report addresses how students are performing in reading and mathematics, the amount of homework that students receive, and presents a follow-up to the 2002 study on charter schools.
September 2002
The 2002 Brown Center Report addresses how students are performing in arithmetic, the academic achievement of high schools with dominant sports teams, and charter school achievement on state tests.
September 2001
The 2001 Brown Center Report investigates the enormous gap between the U.S. and other nations in mathematics achievement, analyzes the gap between the nation's best and worst readers in fourth grade, surveys the culture of the American high school, and looks at achievement in urban schools.
September 2000
The 2000 Brown Center Report studies the use of calculators in math instruction and state and federal programs that single out exemplary schools for special recognition.