MORE GOOD, LESS BAD, AND STILL NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT: Latest International Test Reveals U.S. Progress in Math and Narrowing Achievement Gaps, but No Improvement in Science: United States fourth- and eighth-grade students perform better than the international average in math and science according to the results from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). And, since the test was first given in 1995, math scores at both the fourth- and eighth-grade levels have risen. Additionally, the gaps between the average math and science scores of white students and their African American and Hispanic peers have narrowed somewhat. That’s the good news.

ECONOMIC WOES HIT STATES: Education Spending Cut as Recession Affects State and Local Budgets: Earlier this month, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that the United States has been in a recession since December 2007. In the last year, the U.S. economy has shed nearly two million jobs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost more than one third of its value and, if that wasn’t enough, more than one million homes have been lost to foreclosure since August 2007.

MEASURING UP: Report Finds States Make Little to No Improvement in Providing Access to College and Ensuring Success: Although states have made modest gains in preparing students for college, more students are failing to graduate from high school, according to a new report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (National Center). Based on two decades of data, the report, Measuring Up 2008, also finds that states are making little to no progress in providing affordable college opportunities or improving college completion rates for students.

NEW BRIEF EXAMINES THE ROLE OF CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN CAREER GUIDANCE: In light of the increasingly high-tech and global economy, today’s students need stronger career guidance than ever before, and comprehensive career and technical education (CTE) programs can provide much of this support. So says “Career and Technical Education’s Role in Career Guidance,” a new brief by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE).

MEASURING WHAT MATTERS: Report Evaluates States’ Progress on Developing High-Quality Data Systems: In 2005, all fifty of the nation’s governors signed the National Governors Association (NGA) Graduation Counts Compact. As part of that commitment, they agreed to implement a common, accurate graduation rate and create better systems and methods of collecting, analyzing, and reporting graduation and dropout data. Currently, forty-two states have the data systems in place to calculate the NGA’s graduation rate, and all states except one (Idaho) will report the NGA graduation rate by the 2010–11 school year, according to Measuring What Matters: Creating Longitudinal Data Systems to Improve Student Achievement, a new report from the Data Quality Campaign (DQC).

MISSION NOT YET ACCOMPLISHED: Achieve and Ed Trust Seek to Make College- and Work-Readiness the Goal for High Schools: To help close the gap between what is expected of a high school graduate and what the postsecondary world demands, state leaders must develop policies to equate earning a diploma with college- and work-readiness. This is the theme of a new report, Making College and Career Readiness the Mission for High Schools: A Guide for State Policymakers, that was co-written by education nonprofits Achieve and The Education Trust as part of Measures That Matter, a project that helps guide state decisionmakers in crafting policies with college- and work-readiness at their core.

REPORT FINDS NO IMPROVEMENT IN TEXAS’ HIGH SCHOOL ATTRITION RATES SINCE 1985–86: One of every three students from Texas’ freshman class of 2004–05 left high school before earning a high school diploma. So says the Texas Public School Attrition Study, 2007–08, the latest in a series of reports by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA), a nonprofit organization based in San Antonio, Texas, dedicated to strengthening public schools to work for all children. The report focuses on attrition rates, which IDRA says are an indicator of a school’s “holding power,” or ability to keep students enrolled in school and learning until they graduate.