GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A comparison of urban districts' math score changes over time. From The Nation's Report Card.

While most big-city superintendents would rather their scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress just go away, Beverly Hall of Atlanta has gone out of her way to make sure her students’ progress is judged against the national yardstick.

In a recent profile of Hall, EdWeek reported:

As test scores rose steadily year after year, Ms. Hall wanted to ensure that Atlanta’s progress would not be dismissed by criticism that Georgia’s performance standards and assessment, before recent changes to both, weren’t as rigorous as many other states’. The superintendent decided the city’s students would take a more rigorous national exam and publicly report the scores.

Hall’s colleagues feared that low scores on the national test would draw negative attention to the city’s schools.

But instead, Atlanta was the only district that showed significant gains in both reading and math every year. (more…)