meaning of report in education

Grading and Reporting for Educational Equity

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The purpose of a grading system is to give feedback to students so they can take charge of their learning and to provide information to all who support these students—teachers, special educators, parents, and others. The purpose of a reporting system is to communicate the students’ achievement to families, post-secondary institutions, and employers. These systems must, above all, communicate clear information about the skills a student has mastered or the areas where they need more support or practice. When schools use grades to reward or punish students, or to sort students into levels, imbalances in power and privilege will be magnified and the purposes of the grading and reporting systems will not be achieved. This guide is intended to highlight the central practices that schools can use to ensure that their grading and reporting systems help them build a nurturing, equitable, creative, and dynamic culture of learning.

The following tenets must be at the core of the school’s grading and reporting practices:

Technical aspects of grading:.

Definition of Terms

Grading System: The system that a school has developed to guide how teachers assess and grade student work.

Reporting System: The system that a school has developed for the organization of assignment scores in gradebooks (either online or paper), and the determination of final grades for report cards and transcripts.

Considerations for Schools or Districts When Redesigning Grading Systems

The central challenge for all schools is to create a vibrant and supportive culture of learning. In schools where this culture exists, the faculty believe they can teach all students to reach high standards and have designed school-wide systems to help students get there. Grading and reporting systems can play an important role in helping schools create this culture of high expectations and nurturing support.

In the work of making grading equitable, schools should initially shift culture through the tenets that focus on classroom practice, rather than starting with a change of the symbols that will be used on report cards. Begin redesign efforts by working on common scoring criteria, assessment design, calibration of scoring, opportunities for low-stakes practice and feedback, and systems of academic support. Remember, the point of improving the grading system is to make grading fair, informative, and transparent so students can focus on learning, creating, and growing.

We are grateful to the many extraordinary schools and districts that have contributed to this guide. Their work exemplifies what it means to strive for educational equity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This tool depends on the input and advice of many individual educators, schools, and districts. In no particular order, we would like to thank:

• Joy Nolan of New York City’s Mastery Collaborative
• Mike McRaith, assistant executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association
• Michael Martin, Ed.D., Director of Learning for South Burlington School District, VT
• Barbara Maling, principal of York Middle School, York, ME
• Adam Bunting, Katherine Riley, Emily Rinkema, and Stan Williams of Champlain Valley Union High School, VT
• Sarah Goodman, principal of Hunter’s Point Community Middle School, Long Island City, NY
• Jonathan Pratt, Academic Dean at Foxcroft Academy, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine

The faculties and leaders of the following schools and districts:

• The school district of Waukesha, Wisconsin
• The school district of Kittery, Maine
• Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine 
• Frank McCourt High School, New York City, New York
• Orville H. Platt High School and Francis T. Maloney High School in Meriden, Connecticut
• Maine School Administrative District #6: Bonny Eagle
• University Park Campus High School in Worcester, Massachusetts
• The school district of Durango, Colorado
• Champlain Valley Union High School in Vermont
• Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine
• Hunter’s Point Community Middle School, Long Island City, New York
• Noble High School, North Berwick, Maine
• The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria in Queens, New York
• York Middle School, York, Maine
• Montpelier High School, Montpelier, Vermont
• AR Gould School in the Long Creek Youth Development Center, South Portland, ME 

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The Cultural Power of Report Cards

• Posted December 1, 2023
• By Jill Anderson
• History of Education
• Student Achievement and Outcomes

Questions about the power of report cards led high school history teacher Wade Morris to dig deep into how these pieces of paper came to carry so much weight in the world. In his book, Report Cards: A Cultural History , Morris uncovers the evolution and significance of report cards. “Since the birth of report cards, report cards have had critics and they've had reformers that have tried to create alternative systems,” he says.

He traces the origins of report cards to the 1830s and 1840s, revealing how teachers in common schools grappled with the challenge of gaining parental support and controlling unruly students. Morris emphasizes that the emergence of report cards was a grassroots development, with teachers documenting their intentions and experimenting to find effective means of control. Over time, report cards have come to be more than just academic assessments and carry profound impact on students, parents, and teachers. 

“[Report cards are] effective at motivating students even though it's an extrinsic motivation that has all kinds of unintended consequences like anxiety and sometimes bitterness and neurosis and self-loathing.” Morris says. “And it's also extremely effective at still today winning over the support of parents. … I still save report cards of my kids. Now they're digital. They're in a Google Drive now, but we still save them. And because there's something deeply rooted about our psyche … report cards are a great way of controlling people because we like it.”

Morris says reports cards are instruments of documentation and surveillance, having a unique role in shaping power dynamics within the educational landscape and also influence college admissions, job applications, and even juvenile corrections systems. 

In this episode of the Harvard EdCast, Morris shares how understanding the historical context of report cards can provide a sense of wisdom and perspective. He encourages parents and educators to navigate the complexities of the educational system with a deeper awareness of its evolution and the inherent challenges associated with grading and assessment.

JILL ANDERSON:  I am Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast. 

Wade Morris knows few pieces of paper from school hold more influence over us than report cards. He's an experienced educator and researcher whose journey into understanding the evolution of report cards started with his own struggle as a parent during COVID online learning. Report cards have a long history in the educational landscape, beginning as a teacher's experiment to control unruly students in the 1830s to their current role as influential documents that impact college admissions. I wanted to learn more about report cards interesting past. First, I asked Wade to tell me what interested him in report cards. 

WADE MORRIS: As we were transitioning to online learning, which you've written about, how difficult it was to be a parent in the age of COIVD online learning, my own kids were going through the challenges. And my middle daughter in particular was having a hard time with online worksheets and my wife and I considered, "Okay, let's just drop the worksheets and let her go outside and play." But then we concluded that the missing work would appear on her report cards and that would ultimately impact her long-term prospects. And she's only in second grade. And that's when the light bulb went off that these pieces of paper have a strange power over us, and that could be the literary device through which I try to engage in the nearly 200 years of formal public schooling in American history. 

JILL ANDERSON:  You call report cards tools of control. What do you mean by that? 

WADE MORRIS: I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with Michel Foucault, he is this French intellectual in 1960s and seventies. He argued that the last 200 years of Western civilization had seen this shift. The shift was how power was exerted. Prior to the 1700s and early 1800s, power according to Foucault would've been exerted through force. But then Foucault noticed and he particularly focused on prisons, and he focused on insane asylums. He noticed that power now was exerted through documentation and surveillance. He dabbled in talking about school, but I'm not aware of him ever mentioning things like report cards. But to me it was just an obvious Foucauldian disciplinary tool, as Foucault would say. And essentially what started the whole process of this project was trying to figure out if Foucault was right, trying to figure out if these pieces of paper that emerged in the United States in the 1830s and forties, if they actually were intended to be a tool of control as opposed to a tool of learning and a tool of tracking progress. 

JILL ANDERSON:  I love the beginning, what you uncovered about where these came from because when you reflect on the way people are about assessment right now, and there's a lot of strong disdain for it, even among teachers, it's interesting to see that report cards essentially began with a teacher, it sounds like. 

WADE MORRIS: Yes. This is one of those empirical, historical arguments that I'm trying to make. That this is not me projecting onto the intentions of teachers. This is teachers documenting their intentions themselves. And teachers in the 1830s and 1840s and 50s in this antebellum period at the birth of the common school, these are these new public schools in which the government, state governments were trying to encourage kids whose parents had never experienced school to try to enroll. And these teachers in the trenches of these new common schools were dealing with this common problem across different states, which was teachers and parents were not getting along and the kids were resisting teacher control. It was sometimes violent, it was sometimes deeply intense, even more intense than you could argue than it is today in this period. Because fundamentally parents at this time, most of them are rural farm workers, do not understand what the purpose of these new public schools are. 

And you have these teachers documenting in education journals, documenting in the minutes of their meetings and letters to each other, even in their journals and their diaries, the personal journals that they wrote. They're documenting about experimenting with different ways to try to win over the support of the parents in an attempt to try to control the students in the classroom. It's very explicit, it's very tangible. It's not a lofty, abstract purpose to the origins of these things. And it's invented at the grassroots. It's not pedagogues, it's not administrators that are coming up with this. It's just the daily interactions that teachers had with students experimenting, trying different things. And then fundamentally, as the decades progressed, they coalesced around this one idea of report cards is really the thing that works the best. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Can you talk a little bit about the period over the 20th century when we start to see report cards become this broader tool where we start to see them being a part of college admissions process, job applications? They really took on a life of importance it seems for people. 

WADE MORRIS: It's crazy. And I think it even starts before the 20th century. In the post-war era, 1870s, and even during the Civil War, you saw a lot of things. You see advertisements from private companies trying to sell these new standardized report cards. People are making a buck off of this. And then in the 1870s with the growth of institutionalized school, you see superintendents, you see districts starting to get more organized. If you're curious more about this, David Labaree talks about this a lot in his great books. But anyway, you see these superintendents emerge and the superintendent starts to impose the report cards from the top down, and then all of a sudden the narrative switches, these teachers who invented it 30 or 40 years before start to resist it as an additional part of their workload. To your point, the audience, the intended audience of the report card expands at this time. 

Also, you start to see in the 1880s and 1890s that employers were looking at report cards. It's not just about the parents who are looking at this. And then in the early 1900s, juvenile corrections systems start to use them. Teacher written report cards being submitted to parole officers and to judges to decide about whether or not a kid should be incarcerated. Now all of a sudden, these report cards have a lot of power and dictate whether or not a kid actually has literal freedom. And then in the 1910s and 1920s, with the growing importance of college admissions and the growing competition for college admissions, then it starts to be a litmus test for getting into university. 

At first, it's not really for the kids who have wealth. In the 1910s and 1920s, what you typically see is that if a kid can pay for college, if a kid comes from a family that's been going to that college, there were no college admissions department, but the universities and colleges would essentially just look for completion, not necessarily for specific grades. They don't care if you have A's or B's, just, "Did you pass?" But then the kids that want scholarships, that's when it becomes really, really important for the working class kids looking to get into university. And that's when you see this new era of anxiety about these documents, the anxiety that we still live with a hundred years later. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Do you think report cards are effective? 

WADE MORRIS: Yes, Jill. Yes, they're incredibly effective. That's why they never go away. Since the birth of report cards, report cards have had critics and they've had reformers that have tried to create alternative systems. Really look into this with the alternative school movement, the 1960s and 1970s when there was this wave of zealotry to try to get rid of grades and get rid of report cards. And a lot of your listeners may remember this era. They may have come up through school during this era, but you had at the peak of the alternative school movement, the United States had 5 million kids enrolled in these schools that were supposed to be more democratic, more inspired by Dewey with student interest driven. And the big one is to eliminate grades. That was a universal principle for a lot of these alternative schools. But fundamentally, the alternative school movement burned out, and then it gave birth in the 1980s and 1990s to the testing movement and a return to the basics of traditional school. 

And there's a lot of reasons why alternative school movement ultimately failed to change the mainstream American education. One of those reasons is that grading in systems of reporting is just really effective. It's effective at saving time for teachers, who don't have to write narrative reports, who don't have to make home visits. 

It's effective at motivating students even though it's an extrinsic motivation that has all kinds of unintended consequences like anxiety and sometimes bitterness and neurosis and self-loathing. And it's also extremely effective at still today winning over the support of parents. And I don't know, Jill, maybe you're like me, I still save report cards with my kids. Now they're digital. They're in a Google Drive now, but we still save them. And because there's something deeply rooted about our psyche, this all gets back to Foucauldian stuff, that report cards are a great way of controlling people because we like it. We fundamentally want more of it. We want more data. We want more rankings. We want more surveillance of ourselves. The inward gaze that Foucauldian disciples talk about that a lot of education does, it forces us to look back on ourselves as opposed to pausing to reflect on the bigger system. 

JILL ANDERSON:  What you're saying is you can't really imagine or fathom a world where report cards wouldn't exist in the traditional school system? 

WADE MORRIS: Maybe one of the big flaws of history is that we're not very good at imagining things. You've had a lot of great guests, Jill, over the years that can imagine a better system. But what history does is look at the evidence from the past, and fundamentally, it makes us reject any sense of nostalgia that there was any alternative that we should live up to. But secondly, we also in the history field, look at the attempts that have failed in the past, and we fundamentally conclude that a big drastic change, a big revolution that'll remake all of American education, which a lot of your brilliant guests have talked about, isn't really practical because it's been tried before and it hasn't worked. Now, that's not to say that we can't reform the system and make it marginally more humane. I hope we can. 

And Ethan Hutt and Jack Schneider have just published a new book that's brilliant on this. It's called, Off the Mark , and they come to the same conclusion. They suggest that maybe we can make report cards less permanent, can go back and change a grade after a kid shows progress. That's a creative solution that maybe deserves some more exploration. There's things that have been tried before that might help, narrative reports, teacher comments, more narrative driven report cards that maybe either replace grades or supplement the grades. 

There's problems with that. There's trade-off. One is teacher time. The second is teacher ability. Do we have the ability to actually convey specific meaning and dig into each child's psyche in just a single paragraph? What ends up happening with a lot of narrative reports is that they turn into lacking substance and wrote copy and paste kind of things. There's portfolios, there's been generations of schools that have tried to create portfolios of student work. It could be written, could be art, could be math portfolios even. But the problem there is on the receiving end of this information, do the universities and do the parents have the time and the patience to actually look at the portfolios and try to understand the gradual growth that a student or a learner actually shows? And back to your point, report cards are efficient. They convey specific meaning very quickly, and it saves us time. 

JILL ANDERSON:  It sounds like report cards aren't going to go anywhere, even though this tension exists between assessment grading, people love this topic, love to hate it, and report cards. It just seems like this will always exist in some manner in modern schooling. 

WADE MORRIS: And that's why I get very bored with the Foucault point very quickly. After I researched the Antebellum period, it was clear to me that, "Okay, Foucault is onto something here." Then the question was, how do ordinary teachers like me and parents and students carve out meaning or try to carve out meaning within the classroom and even joy in the classroom? And this is an existential question for me as a career teacher in the middle of his career, I got another 20 years left of teaching. What's the point? Is it just about control? Or can I live with a certain degree of cognitive dissonance and still try to give my students space to actually love what we do even within this system that is fundamentally about discipline, I think? And that's what the rest of my research has tried to be about is how people in the 1870s, a formerly enslaved person in the 1870s, carves out meaning during reconstruction in the classroom, how do parents balance the neurosis of and the anxiety of having children come home with report cards while also trying to encourage their children to love learning? 

How do parents do that in the 1880s? The turn of the century juvenile corrections, how does a kid who really hates the system in Colorado fight back against it? And then can he actually resist the system all the way through his adolescence? And then you get all the way through the alternative school movement, which ultimately is a tragic failure, I think. But there is still a kernel of alternative school movement idealism that's still out there, and there is still space for these schools to exist. It's just really hard. It's really hard for parents and students to find them and then find the resources to actually attend them. This is what I think is more interesting to me than just the question of discipline and control. It's the existential question of how do we find meaning in all of this? 

JILL ANDERSON:  How do you balance something like grading your students, which is something everyone has to do in most teaching professions, and that what you just mentioned, the joy of learning, because the two don't always feel like they are aligned? 

WADE MORRIS: I hesitate to ever suggest to teachers what they should do, but I know what I'm trying to do. It might not work with other teachers, but one of the things I do is just admit it, name the thing that grades are with the students, and maybe turn it into a discussion. As a history teacher, I can incorporate into the content of the course. 

I teach politics also, there's a lot of political theory that this stuff is relevant to. You can turn this into a metaphor. And by naming it though, by describing it to the students and the students instinctively feel it, a lot of times the fact that this is reductionist, it's fundamentally reducing human beings to numbers and letters. The fact that we can name it for them, maybe it helps them a little bit. Maybe it helps them understand that they are normal and they're responding in normal ways to an abnormal system. And the abnormal system hasn't been around for centuries. It's been around for almost two centuries, but it doesn't go back millennia. And then this is what a lot of pedagogues say is critical consciousness, the self-awareness, the awareness of how we got where we are today. And maybe that helps. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Have your personal and professional views of report cards changed as a result of doing this research? 

WADE MORRIS: I'm at peace with it now. I'm at peace with report cards. I went full circle. I spent 15 years in the classroom before doing this research, and I hadn't really paused to reflect on the context of where the system emerged and how it emerged. And then I went through my critical theory phase where it's about oppressed and oppressors. And then there's the crisis where you think, "I'm part of the oppression." And now I'm at peace with I can be a really good teacher. Maybe not the greatest, not the greatest for every kid, not the one that every kid needs, but I can be a good teacher that can help kids balance the pressures and anxieties of grades with a genuine joy for learning. The thing I figured out is that I've got to demonstrate it myself and also admit and explain that what they're going through in the broader context of how they feel, feeling oppressed by grades, is normal. It's essentially like this middle age cognitive dissonance that maybe a lot of teachers like me might feel. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Do you think parents should look at these documents a little bit differently knowing the history of them? 

WADE MORRIS: Yes. This might sound cheesy, and it's also self-serving as a historian and a history teacher. Learning about the context of how the system emerged gives you a sense of self-awareness and wisdom. And what comes with wisdom is knowing that twas ever thus, and therefore, I'm not going to overreact. And I think we do need some more wisdom amongst parents in perspective. It doesn't necessarily mean that I know the answer of how to manage any given situation, but I do think that that's the great gift that history gives us is just to take a deep breath. We are living through a 200-year epoch and we can't control it, and we can deescalate when things don't go well for our children. That's my instinct at least. 

JILL ANDERSON:  When you see that D come home on your kid's report card, not to panic… 

WADE MORRIS: Or Google "American History of Education" read a little bit and then go confront your kid. Sorry, Jill. I'm being sarcastic. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Don't put as much weight into them basically. 

WADE MORRIS: I suppose so. We will get through this, and we're all going through this together. 

JILL ANDERSON:  Wade Morris is a high school history teacher at an international boarding school in Moshi, Tanzania. He's the author of Report Cards, A Cultural History . I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast, produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening.

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report noun [C] ( DESCRIPTION )

• The report highlights the need for stricter regulations .
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report noun [C] ( SCHOOL )

Report verb ( describe ).

• Several sightings of dolphins have been reported.
• The newspapers are reporting that the manager has resigned .
• During the war she reported from Iraq.
• He has been assigned to report on the Royal wedding .
• Our political correspondent reports from Downing Street.

report verb ( TELL )

Report verb ( complain ), phrasal verbs.

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A child’s right to education entails the right to learn. Yet, for too many children across the globe, schooling does not lead to learning.

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This article explores how to write effective evaluation reports, covering their purpose, structure, content, and common challenges. It provides tips for presenting evaluation findings effectively and using evaluation reports to improve programs and policies. Examples of well-written evaluation reports and templates are also included.

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What is the purpose of an evaluation report, importance of evaluation reports in program management, structure of evaluation report, best practices for writing an evaluation report, common challenges in writing an evaluation report, tips for presenting evaluation findings effectively, using evaluation reports to improve programs and policies, example of evaluation report templates, conclusion: making evaluation reports work for you.

An evaluatio n report is a document that presents the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of an evaluation, which is a systematic and objective assessment of the performance, impact, and effectiveness of a program, project, policy, or intervention. The report typically includes a description of the evaluation’s purpose, scope, methodology, and data sources, as well as an analysis of the evaluation findings and conclusions, and specific recommendations for program or project improvement.

Evaluation reports can help to build capacity for monitoring and evaluation within organizations and communities, by promoting a culture of learning and continuous improvement. By providing a structured approach to evaluation and reporting, evaluation reports can help to ensure that evaluations are conducted consistently and rigorously, and that the results are communicated effectively to stakeholders.

Evaluation reports may be read by a wide variety of audiences, including persons working in government agencies, staff members working for donors and partners, students and community organisations, and development professionals working on projects or programmes that are comparable to the ones evaluated.

Related: Difference Between Evaluation Report and M&E Reports .

The purpose of an evaluation report is to provide stakeholders with a comprehensive and objective assessment of a program or project’s performance, achievements, and challenges. The report serves as a tool for decision-making, as it provides evidence-based information on the program or project’s strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations for improvement.

The main objectives of an evaluation report are:

• Accountability: To assess whether the program or project has met its objectives and delivered the intended results, and to hold stakeholders accountable for their actions and decisions.
• Learning : To identify the key lessons learned from the program or project, including best practices, challenges, and opportunities for improvement, and to apply these lessons to future programs or projects.
• Improvement : To provide recommendations for program or project improvement based on the evaluation findings and conclusions, and to support evidence-based decision-making.
• Communication : To communicate the evaluation findings and conclusions to stakeholders , including program staff, funders, policymakers, and the general public, and to promote transparency and stakeholder engagement.

An evaluation report should be clear, concise, and well-organized, and should provide stakeholders with a balanced and objective assessment of the program or project’s performance. The report should also be timely, with recommendations that are actionable and relevant to the current context. Overall, the purpose of an evaluation report is to promote accountability, learning, and improvement in program and project design and implementation.

Evaluation reports play a critical role in program management by providing valuable information about program effectiveness and efficiency. They offer insights into the extent to which programs have achieved their objectives, as well as identifying areas for improvement.

Evaluation reports help program managers and stakeholders to make informed decisions about program design, implementation, and funding. They provide evidence-based information that can be used to improve program outcomes and address challenges.

Moreover, evaluation reports are essential in demonstrating program accountability and transparency to funders, policymakers, and other stakeholders. They serve as a record of program activities and outcomes, allowing stakeholders to assess the program’s impact and sustainability.

In short, evaluation reports are a vital tool for program managers and evaluators. They provide a comprehensive picture of program performance, including strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. By utilizing evaluation reports, program managers can make informed decisions to improve program outcomes and ensure that their programs are effective, efficient, and sustainable over time.

The structure of an evaluation report can vary depending on the requirements and preferences of the stakeholders, but typically it includes the following sections:

• Executive Summary : A brief summary of the evaluation findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
• Introduction: An overview of the evaluation context, scope, purpose, and methodology.
• Background: A summary of the programme or initiative that is being assessed, including its goals, activities, and intended audience(s).
• Evaluation Questions : A list of the evaluation questions that guided the data collection and analysis.
• Methodology: A description of the data collection methods used in the evaluation, including the sampling strategy, data sources, and data analysis techniques.
• Findings: A presentation of the evaluation findings, organized according to the evaluation questions.
• Conclusions : A summary of the main evaluation findings and conclusions, including an assessment of the program or project’s effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.
• Recommendations : A list of specific recommendations for program or project improvements based on the evaluation findings and conclusions.
• Lessons Learned : A discussion of the key lessons learned from the evaluation that could be applied to similar programs or projects in the future.
• Limitations : A discussion of the limitations of the evaluation, including any challenges or constraints encountered during the data collection and analysis.
• References: A list of references cited in the evaluation report.
• Appendices : Additional information, such as detailed data tables, graphs, or maps, that support the evaluation findings and conclusions.

The structure of the evaluation report should be clear, logical, and easy to follow, with headings and subheadings used to organize the content and facilitate navigation.

In addition, the presentation of data may be made more engaging and understandable by the use of visual aids such as graphs and charts.

Writing an effective evaluation report requires careful planning and attention to detail. Here are some best practices to consider when writing an evaluation report:

Begin by establishing the report’s purpose, objectives, and target audience. A clear understanding of these elements will help guide the report’s structure and content.

Use clear and concise language throughout the report. Avoid jargon and technical terms that may be difficult for readers to understand.

Use evidence-based findings to support your conclusions and recommendations. Ensure that the findings are clearly presented using data tables, graphs, and charts.

Provide context for the evaluation by including a brief summary of the program being evaluated, its objectives, and intended impact. This will help readers understand the report’s purpose and the findings.

Include limitations and caveats in the report to provide a balanced assessment of the program’s effectiveness. Acknowledge any data limitations or other factors that may have influenced the evaluation’s results.

Organize the report in a logical manner, using headings and subheadings to break up the content. This will make the report easier to read and understand.

Ensure that the report is well-structured and easy to navigate. Use a clear and consistent formatting style throughout the report.

Finally, use the report to make actionable recommendations that will help improve program effectiveness and efficiency. Be specific about the steps that should be taken and the resources required to implement the recommendations.

By following these best practices, you can write an evaluation report that is clear, concise, and actionable, helping program managers and stakeholders to make informed decisions that improve program outcomes.

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Writing an evaluation report can be a challenging task, even for experienced evaluators. Here are some common challenges that evaluators may encounter when writing an evaluation report:

• Data limitations: One of the biggest challenges in writing an evaluation report is dealing with data limitations. Evaluators may find that the data they collected is incomplete, inaccurate, or difficult to interpret, making it challenging to draw meaningful conclusions.
• Stakeholder disagreements: Another common challenge is stakeholder disagreements over the evaluation’s findings and recommendations. Stakeholders may have different opinions about the program’s effectiveness or the best course of action to improve program outcomes.
• Technical writing skills: Evaluators may struggle with technical writing skills, which are essential for presenting complex evaluation findings in a clear and concise manner. Writing skills are particularly important when presenting statistical data or other technical information.
• Time constraints: Evaluators may face time constraints when writing evaluation reports, particularly if the report is needed quickly or the evaluation involved a large amount of data collection and analysis.
• Communication barriers: Evaluators may encounter communication barriers when working with stakeholders who speak different languages or have different cultural backgrounds. Effective communication is essential for ensuring that the evaluation’s findings are understood and acted upon.

By being aware of these common challenges, evaluators can take steps to address them and produce evaluation reports that are clear, accurate, and actionable. This may involve developing data collection and analysis plans that account for potential data limitations, engaging stakeholders early in the evaluation process to build consensus, and investing time in developing technical writing skills.

Presenting evaluation findings effectively is essential for ensuring that program managers and stakeholders understand the evaluation’s purpose, objectives, and conclusions. Here are some tips for presenting evaluation findings effectively:

• Know your audience: Before presenting evaluation findings, ensure that you have a clear understanding of your audience’s background, interests, and expertise. This will help you tailor your presentation to their needs and interests.
• Use visuals: Visual aids such as graphs, charts, and tables can help convey evaluation findings more effectively than written reports. Use visuals to highlight key data points and trends.
• Be concise: Keep your presentation concise and to the point. Focus on the key findings and conclusions, and avoid getting bogged down in technical details.
• Tell a story: Use the evaluation findings to tell a story about the program’s impact and effectiveness. This can help engage stakeholders and make the findings more memorable.
• Provide context: Provide context for the evaluation findings by explaining the program’s objectives and intended impact. This will help stakeholders understand the significance of the findings.
• Use plain language: Use plain language that is easily understandable by your target audience. Avoid jargon and technical terms that may confuse or alienate stakeholders.
• Engage stakeholders: Engage stakeholders in the presentation by asking for their input and feedback. This can help build consensus and ensure that the evaluation findings are acted upon.

By following these tips, you can present evaluation findings in a way that engages stakeholders, highlights key findings, and ensures that the evaluation’s conclusions are acted upon to improve program outcomes.

Evaluation reports are crucial tools for program managers and policymakers to assess program effectiveness and make informed decisions about program design, implementation, and funding. By analyzing data collected during the evaluation process, evaluation reports provide evidence-based information that can be used to improve program outcomes and impact.

One of the primary ways that evaluation reports can be used to improve programs and policies is by identifying program strengths and weaknesses. By assessing program effectiveness and efficiency, evaluation reports can help identify areas where programs are succeeding and areas where improvements are needed. This information can inform program redesign and improvement efforts, leading to better program outcomes and impact.

Evaluation reports can also be used to make data-driven decisions about program design, implementation, and funding. By providing decision-makers with data-driven information, evaluation reports can help ensure that programs are designed and implemented in a way that maximizes their impact and effectiveness. This information can also be used to allocate resources more effectively, directing funding towards programs that are most effective and efficient.

Another way that evaluation reports can be used to improve programs and policies is by disseminating best practices in program design and implementation. By sharing information about what works and what doesn’t work, evaluation reports can help program managers and policymakers make informed decisions about program design and implementation, leading to better outcomes and impact.

Finally, evaluation reports can inform policy development and improvement efforts by providing evidence about the effectiveness and impact of existing policies. This information can be used to make data-driven decisions about policy development and improvement efforts, ensuring that policies are designed and implemented in a way that maximizes their impact and effectiveness.

In summary, evaluation reports are critical tools for improving programs and policies. By providing evidence-based information about program effectiveness and efficiency, evaluation reports can help program managers and policymakers make informed decisions, allocate resources more effectively, disseminate best practices, and inform policy development and improvement efforts.

There are many different templates available for creating evaluation reports. Here are some examples of template evaluation reports that can be used as a starting point for creating your own report:

• The National Science Foundation Evaluation Report Template – This template provides a structure for evaluating research projects funded by the National Science Foundation. It includes sections on project background, research questions, evaluation methodology, data analysis, and conclusions and recommendations.
• The CDC Program Evaluation Template – This template, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides a framework for evaluating public health programs. It includes sections on program description, evaluation questions, data sources, data analysis, and conclusions and recommendations.
• The World Bank Evaluation Report Template – This template, created by the World Bank, provides a structure for evaluating development projects. It includes sections on project background, evaluation methodology, data analysis, findings and conclusions, and recommendations.
• The European Commission Evaluation Report Template – This template provides a structure for evaluating European Union projects and programs. It includes sections on project description, evaluation objectives, evaluation methodology, findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
• The UNICEF Evaluation Report Template – This template provides a framework for evaluating UNICEF programs and projects. It includes sections on program description, evaluation questions, evaluation methodology, findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

These templates provide a structure for creating evaluation reports that are well-organized and easy to read. They can be customized to meet the specific needs of your program or project and help ensure that your evaluation report is comprehensive and includes all of the necessary components.

• World Health Organisations Reports
• Checkl ist for Assessing USAID Evaluation Reports

In conclusion, evaluation reports are essential tools for program managers and policymakers to assess program effectiveness and make informed decisions about program design, implementation, and funding. By analyzing data collected during the evaluation process, evaluation reports provide evidence-based information that can be used to improve program outcomes and impact.

To make evaluation reports work for you, it is important to plan ahead and establish clear objectives and target audiences. This will help guide the report’s structure and content and ensure that the report is tailored to the needs of its intended audience.

When writing an evaluation report, it is important to use clear and concise language, provide evidence-based findings, and offer actionable recommendations that can be used to improve program outcomes. Including context for the evaluation findings and acknowledging limitations and caveats will provide a balanced assessment of the program’s effectiveness and help build trust with stakeholders.

Presenting evaluation findings effectively requires knowing your audience, using visuals, being concise, telling a story, providing context, using plain language, and engaging stakeholders. By following these tips, you can present evaluation findings in a way that engages stakeholders, highlights key findings, and ensures that the evaluation’s conclusions are acted upon to improve program outcomes.

Finally, using evaluation reports to improve programs and policies requires identifying program strengths and weaknesses, making data-driven decisions, disseminating best practices, allocating resources effectively, and informing policy development and improvement efforts. By using evaluation reports in these ways, program managers and policymakers can ensure that their programs are effective, efficient, and sustainable over time.

Well understanding, the description of the general evaluation of report are clear with good arrangement and it help students to learn and make practices

Patrick Kapuot

Thankyou for very much for such detail information. Very comprehensively said.

hailemichael

very good explanation, thanks

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• Progress towards quality education was already slower than required before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has had devastating impacts on education, causing learning losses in four out of five of the 104 countries studied.

Without additional measures, an estimated 84 million children and young people will stay out of school by 2030 and approximately 300 million students will lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills necessary for success in life.

In addition to free primary and secondary schooling for all boys and girls by 2030, the aim is to provide equal access to affordable vocational training, eliminate gender and wealth disparities, and achieve universal access to quality higher education.

Education is the key that will allow many other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved. When people are able to get quality education they can break from the cycle of poverty.

Education helps to reduce inequalities and to reach gender equality. It also empowers people everywhere to live more healthy and sustainable lives. Education is also crucial to fostering tolerance between people and contributes to more peaceful societies.

• To deliver on Goal 4, education financing must become a national investment priority. Furthermore, measures such as making education free and compulsory, increasing the number of teachers, improving basic school infrastructure and embracing digital transformation are essential.

What progress have we made so far?

While progress has been made towards the 2030 education targets set by the United Nations, continued efforts are required to address persistent challenges and ensure that quality education is accessible to all, leaving no one behind.

Between 2015 and 2021, there was an increase in worldwide primary school completion, lower secondary completion, and upper secondary completion. Nevertheless, the progress made during this period was notably slower compared to the 15 years prior.

What challenges remain?

According to national education targets, the percentage of students attaining basic reading skills by the end of primary school is projected to rise from 51 per cent in 2015 to 67 per cent by 2030. However, an estimated 300 million children and young people will still lack basic numeracy and literacy skills by 2030.

Economic constraints, coupled with issues of learning outcomes and dropout rates, persist in marginalized areas, underscoring the need for continued global commitment to ensuring inclusive and equitable education for all. Low levels of information and communications technology (ICT) skills are also a major barrier to achieving universal and meaningful connectivity.

Where are people struggling the most to have access to education?

Sub-Saharan Africa faces the biggest challenges in providing schools with basic resources. The situation is extreme at the primary and lower secondary levels, where less than one-half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have access to drinking water, electricity, computers and the Internet.

Inequalities will also worsen unless the digital divide – the gap between under-connected and highly digitalized countries – is not addressed .

Are there groups that have more difficult access to education?

Yes, women and girls are one of these groups. About 40 per cent of countries have not achieved gender parity in primary education. These disadvantages in education also translate into lack of access to skills and limited opportunities in the labour market for young women.

What can we do?  

Ask our governments to place education as a priority in both policy and practice. Lobby our governments to make firm commitments to provide free primary school education to all, including vulnerable or marginalized groups.

Facts and figures

Goal 4 targets.

• Without additional measures, only one in six countries will achieve the universal secondary school completion target by 2030, an estimated 84 million children and young people will still be out of school, and approximately 300 million students will lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills necessary for success in life.
• To achieve national Goal 4 benchmarks, which are reduced in ambition compared with the original Goal 4 targets, 79 low- and lower-middle- income countries still face an average annual financing gap of $97 billion.

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023

4.1  By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes

4.2  By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education

4.3  By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university

4.4  By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship

4.5  By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations

4.6  By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy

4.7  By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

4.A  Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all

4.B  By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries

4.C  By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states

UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UN Children’s Fund

UN Development Programme

Global Education First Initiative

UN Population Fund: Comprehensive sexuality education

UN Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth

Fast Facts: Quality Education

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Report Writing And Its Significance In Your Career

You reach the office at around 9.00 AM, switch on your system, and start working. It’s a usual workday for…

You reach the office at around 9.00 AM, switch on your system, and start working. It’s a usual workday for you until your manager comes to your desk and asks you to create a sales report. That’s the first time you’ve got such a task, and find yourself struggling with basic questions such as, “What’s a report?” and “How do I write one?”

What Is Report Writing?

Elements of report writing, importance of report writing.

You must have heard the term ‘report writing’ before.

According to the commonly known definition of report writing, a report is a formal document that elaborates on a topic using facts, charts, and graphs to support its arguments and findings.

Any report—whether it’s about a business event or one that describes the processes of various departments in a company—is meant for a particular type of audience.

But why do you think your manager wants you to create a report?

One simple answer is: an elaborate report prepared with evaluated facts helps solve complex problems. When managers come across certain business situations, they ask for comprehensive and well-thought-out reports that can help them design business plans.

Once you have an idea about what a report is, the next step is to understand how you can write one.

There are different types of reports, and each has a specific structure, usually known as ‘elements of the report’.

While we tell you what the elements of report writing are, if you want detailed guidance, you can go for Harappa Education’s Writing Proficiently course that talks about the popular PREP (Point of starting, Reason, Evidence, and Point of ending) model of report writing.

Every report starts with a title page and a table of contents, after which come the main sections–the executive summary, introduction, discussion, and conclusion.

Executive Summary:

Do you remember summary writing for English class during school days? You were asked to read a story or passage and write a summary, including the important takeaways. ( ambien )

That’s exactly what you are expected to do in a report’s executive summary section. This section presents a brief overview of the report’s contents. You should present the key points of the report in this section.

But why is it important to write an executive summary at the start of the report?

Firstly, the summary will help readers better understand the purpose, key points, and evidence you are going to present in the report. Secondly, readers who are in a hurry can read the summary for a preview of the report.

Here are some specifics that will help you write a clear and concise summary:

Include the purpose of your report and emphasize conclusions or recommendations.

Include only the essential or most significant information to support your theories and conclusions.

Follow the same sequence of information that you have used in the report.

Keep the summary length to 10-15% of the complete report.

Try not to introduce any new information or point in summary that you haven’t covered in the report.

The summary should communicate the message clearly and independently.

Introduction:  

The introduction section should:

Briefly describe the background and context of the research you have done.

Describe the change, problem, or issue related to the topic.

Define the relevant objectives and purpose of the report

Give hints about the overall answer to the problem covered in the report.

Comment on the limitations and any assumptions you have made to get to the conclusion.

Discussion:

This section serves two purposes:

It justifies the recommendations.

It explains the conclusions.

While you are writing the discussion section, make sure you do the following:

Present your analysis logically.

If needed, divide the information under appropriate headings to improving readability and ease of understanding.

Explain your points and back up your claims with strong and evaluated evidence.

Connect your theory with real-life scenarios

Conclusion:

The last key element of report writing is the conclusion section. Present the conclusion as follows:

• The primary conclusion should come first.

Identify and interpret the major problems related to the case your report is based on.

Relate to the objectives that you have mentioned in the introduction.

Keep the conclusion brief and specific.

Before you start writing a report, it’s important to understand the significance of the report. It’s also crucial to research independently instead of relying on data and trends available on the internet, besides structuring the report properly. Here’s why:

Decision-Making Tool

Organizations require a considerable amount of data and information on specific topics, scenarios, and situations. Managers and decision-makers often use business reports and research papers as information sources to make important business decisions and reach solutions.

Another reason that adds to the significance of report writing is that it is a collection of evaluated information.

Different types of activities by different departments define an organization. Think of the departments your organization has–development, sales, distribution, marketing, HR, and more. Each department follows defined processes and protocols that require many small and large activities on a daily basis.

It is impossible for the management to keep an eye on the different activities in each department.

That’s where the reports can help. With every department writing and maintaining periodic reports, keeping a tab of ongoing activities becomes easier for the management.

Professional Improvements

During the annual appraisal cycle, your manager will ask you to write reports to explain your position, level of work, and performance.

If you have ever wondered how your manager decided to promote your colleague and not you, the answer may lie in his well-presented report.

Quick Source For Problem-Solving

There’s no denying that managers require accurate information on various topics to make quick decisions. Often due to urgency, managers only rely on business reports as an authentic source of information. Almost every employee would have witnessed a situation that needed the manager’s attention urgently. Reports come in handy during such situations.

Report writing is a significant exercise in many ways for your professional life. If you are not well-versed with it already, you must start working on your report writing skills now. For more help or guidance to learn this new skill, sign up for Harappa’s Writing Proficiently course.

Make the most of your time at home and master this new skill. Work on many assignments, improve your skills, and become a pro at report writing.

Explore our Harappa Diaries section to learn more about topics related to the Communicate habit such as the Importance of Writing Skills and the Cycle of Communication .

How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.

The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. Refer to Technical notes for more details.

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Special Education Action

Children are our priority. Ensuring their needs are met is our goal.

What Is An Education Record?

To fully access your student’s education records, you must have a full understanding of the definition of “education records”. The same holds true if you are trying to monitor whether the confidentiality of the student’s records is being maintained.

An education record simply isn’t a file consisting of report cards and progress reports. It includes such records as emails and legal invoices, too.

What’s the Federal-Level Definition?

Pursuant to §1232g(a)(4) :

The term ‘‘education records’’ means, except as may be provided otherwise in subparagraph (B), those records, files, documents, and other materials which— (i) contain information directly related to a student; and (ii) are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution. (B) The term ‘‘education records’’ does not include— (i) records of instructional, supervisory, and administrative personnel and educational personnel ancillary thereto which are in the sole possession of the maker thereof and which are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a substitute; (ii) records maintained by a law enforcement unit of the educational agency or institution that were created by that law enforcement unit for the purpose of law enforcement; (iii) in the case of persons who are employed by an educational agency or institution but who are not in attendance at such agency or institution, records made and maintained in the normal course of business which relate exclusively to such person in that person’s capacity as an employee and are not available for use for any other purpose; or (iv) records on a student who is eighteen years of age or older, or is attending an institution of postsecondary education, which are made or maintained by a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, or other recognized professional or paraprofessional acting in his professional or paraprofessional capacity, or assisting in that capacity, and which are made, maintained, or used only in connection with the provision of treatment to the student, and are not available to anyone other than persons providing such treatment, except that such records can be personally reviewed by a physician or other appropriate professional of the student’s choice.

Pursuant to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, §300.611(b) :

As used in §§300.611 through 300.625— (b)  Education records means the type of records covered under the definition of “education records” in 34 CFR part 99 (the regulations implementing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. 1232g (FERPA)).

What’s the State-Level Definition?

You’ll find a definition within your state’s code, too. For example, in Virginia, pursuant to Virginia Code § 22.1-289 :

“Scholastic records” means those records containing information directly related to a student or an applicant for admission and maintained by a public body that is an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.

Also from Virginia, pursuant to 8VAC20-81-10 :

“Education record” means those records that are directly related to a student and maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. The term also has the same meaning as “scholastic record.” In addition to written records, this also includes electronic exchanges between school personnel and parent regarding matters associated with the child’s educational program (e.g., scheduling of meetings or notices). This term also includes the type of records covered under the definition of “education record” in the regulations implementing the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. (20 USC § 1232g(a)(3); §  22.1-289  of the Code of Virginia; 34 CFR 300.611(b))

Don’t Forget State Education Agency and Case Law Findings

In 2021, I filed a state complaint with Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) , related to Fairfax County Public Schools’ repeat failures to maintain privacy of education records . Earlier that year, FCPS released legal invoices in response to a FOIA request, but neglected to redact personally identifiable information.

VDOE found that the legal invoices are student records . The following is its reasoning behind this finding:

● In the past twenty years, much litigation in this area has focused on defining the scope of records covered by the statute. The upshot of these cases is that not every document that contains PII is “maintained” within the meaning of the statute, and accordingly, not every document containing PII is an education record subject to its protections. ● FERPA clearly does not require that any particular documents be maintained in a student’s education record. Specifically, the Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO), U.S. Department of Education, has advised: o “Under FERPA, a school is not generally required to maintain particular education records or education records that contain specific information [emphasis added]. Rather, a school is required to provide certain privacy protections for those education records that it does maintain.” o “Under FERPA, a school is not required to provide information that is not maintained or to create education records in response to a parent’s request.” ● Litigation in this area has further focused on whether documents directly related to a student that exist incidentally are “maintained” by the school division. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically examined whether student-specific information had been “maintained”—thus constituting an “education record”—in Owasso Public Schools v. Falvo . In this case, the Court ruled that peer-graded papers had yet to be “maintained” by the school, and, accordingly, did not constitute education records. The Court opined: The word “maintain” suggests FERPA records will be kept in a filing cabinet in a records room at the school or on a permanent secure database, perhaps even after the student is no longer enrolled. ● Subsequent judicial rulings further refine the issue of “maintaining” records—specifically, email correspondence. Citing Owasso , a California federal district court focused on the two-pronged definition of “education record” in S.A. v. Tulare Co. Office of Educ. and Calif. Dept. of Educ. The court found that: an email is an education record only if it both contains information related to the student and is maintained by the educational agency. Conversely, an email that is not maintained by the educational agency is not an education record [emphasis added] . The court specifically rejected the student’s argument that the school division “maintained” emails electronically “in inboxes and [its] server….” The court stated: Emails, like assignments passed through the hands of students, have a fleeting nature. An email may be sent, received, read, and deleted within moments. As such, Student’s assertion–that all emails that identify Student, whether in individual inboxes or the retrievable electronic database, are maintained “in the same way the registrar maintains a student’s folder in a permanent file”–is “fanciful.” Owasso, 534 U.S. at 433. Like individual assignments that are handled by many student graders, emails may appear in the inboxes of many individuals at the educational institution. FERPA does not contemplate that education records are maintained in numerous places. ● In 2017, a federal district court in Pennsylvania relied on Owasso and Tulare in addressing whether e-mails [discussing a student’s potential retention in first grade], in fact, are “education records” as envisioned by the interlocking statutory schemes at issue here.… Unless [LEA] kept copies of e-mails related to [student] as part of its record filing system with the intention of maintaining them, we cannot reach the conclusion that every e-mail which mentions [student] is a bona fide education record within the statutory definition. These e-mails appear to be casual discussions, not records maintained by [LEA]. Since these e-mails do not qualify as education records to which Plaintiffs are guaranteed a right of access, there was no violation of their procedural rights…. ● While these cases stand for the proposition that not every document that contains a student’s name constitutes an education record, the question presented in the instant case is different. Here, the documents disclosed clearly contained some PII, and the LEA does not directly argue that they were not “maintained”. In fact, the documents have presumably been maintained by the LEA as financial or accounting records. Rather, the LEA urges that the records are not of the type that could be “easily identified as part of an education record” and thus are not subject to FERPA. Because the question is fundamentally different, the case law cited above sheds some light on the issue, but is not dispositive. Logically, persuasive arguments can be made for and against the school division’s position. ● While we do not believe, in light of applicable case law, that a document must be kept in a physical or electronic file labeled with the student’s name to be an electronic record, we do agree that there is some logic to categorizing financial records separately from student records. In fact, the sole reference to financial records contained in FERPA is limited to “student financial records (at the post-secondary level),” a logical inclusion in that post-secondary education, unlike public elementary and secondary education, generally requires the payment of tuition. The limitation, however, is telling, in that it does not suggest that other financial records such as a student’s cafeteria account would be a typical education record. ● On the other hand, we note that billing records such as these are related to event(s) that occurred in connection with the student’s educational services. We would expect to see substantive information related to a due process hearing, a disciplinary appeal or a suit otherwise arising from the relationship between the student and the school division in the student’s educational record. Should the school division’s decision about whether to put a copy of the bill in the file as well as in the accounting office drive whether the document, clearly containing PII and clearly maintained by the school division, is subject to FERPA protections? ● The LEA has not cited any legal authority to support its position, nor have we identified any authority shedding further light on this matter. As a result, we have no supporting authority to cause us to depart from the tried and true construct. Thus, we must conclude that the documents contain PII and are maintained by the school division, therefore they are education records under FERPA and this matter is within our jurisdiction.

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What’s behind the growing gap between men and women in college completion?

The growing gender gap in higher education – both in enrollment and graduation rates – has been a topic of conversation and debate in recent months. Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college today than young men, and among those ages 25 and older, women are more likely than men to have a four-year college degree. The gap in college completion is even wider among younger adults ages 25 to 34.

Women’s educational gains have occurred alongside their growing labor force participation as well as structural changes in the economy . The implications of the growing gap in educational attainment for men are significant, as research has shown the strong correlation between college completion and lifetime earnings and wealth accumulation .

To explore the factors contributing to the growing gender gap in college completion, we surveyed 9,676 U.S. adults between Oct. 18-24, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Data on rates of college completion came from a Center analysis of Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (IPUMS). The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the data collection for the 2020 ASEC. The response rate for the March 2020 survey was  about 10 percentage points lower than in preceding months. Using administrative data, Census Bureau researchers have shown that nonresponding households were less similar to respondents than in earlier years. They also generated  entropy balance weights to account for this nonrandom nonresponse. The 2020 ASEC figures presented used these supplementary weights.

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

A majority (62%) of U.S. adults ages 25 and older don’t have a four-year college degree, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Current Population Survey data. But the reasons for not completing a four-year degree differ for men and women, according to a new Center survey of adults who do not have such a degree and are not currently enrolled in college.

Financial considerations are a key reason why many don’t attend or complete college. Among adults who do not have a bachelor’s degree and are not currently enrolled in school, roughly four-in-ten (42%) say a major reason why they have not received a four-year college degree is that they couldn’t afford college. Some 36% say needing to work to help support their family was a major reason they didn’t get their degree.

Overall, about three-in-ten adults who didn’t complete four years of college (29%) say a major reason for this is that they just didn’t want to, 23% say they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted, and 20% say they just didn’t consider getting a four-year degree. Relatively few (13%) adults without a bachelor’s degree say a major reason they didn’t pursue this level of education was that they didn’t think they’d get into a four-year college.

Men are more likely than women to point to factors that have more to do with personal choice. Roughly a third (34%) of men without a bachelor’s degree say a major reason they didn’t complete college is that they just didn’t want to. Only one-in-four women say the same. Non-college-educated men are also more likely than their female counterparts to say a major reason they don’t have a four-year degree is that they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted (26% of men say this vs. 20% of women).

Women (44%) are more likely than men (39%) to say not being able to afford college is a major reason they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Men and women are about equally likely to say needing to work to help support their family was a major impediment.

The shares of men and women saying they didn’t consider going to college or they didn’t think they’d get into a four-year school are not significantly different.

The reasons people give for not completing college also differ across racial and ethnic groups. Among those without a bachelor’s degree, Hispanic adults (52%) are more likely than those who are White (39%) or Black (41%) to say a major reason they didn’t graduate from a four-year college is that they couldn’t afford it. Hispanic and Black adults without a four-year degree are more likely than their White counterparts to say needing to work to support their family was a major reason. There aren’t enough Asian adults without a bachelor’s degree in the sample to analyze this group separately.

While a third of White adults without a four-year degree say not wanting to go to school was a major reason they didn’t complete a four-year degree, smaller shares of Black (22%) and Hispanic (23%) adults say the same. White adults are also more likely to say not needing more education for the job or career they wanted is a major reason why they don’t have a bachelor’s degree.

In some instances, the gender gaps in the reasons for not completing college are more pronounced among White adults than among Black or Hispanic adults. About four-in-ten White men who didn’t complete four years of college (39%) say a major reason for this is that they just didn’t want to. This compares with 27% of White women without a degree. Views on this don’t differ significantly by gender for Black or Hispanic adults.

Similarly, while three-in-ten White men without a college degree say a major reason they didn’t complete college is that they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted, only 24% of White women say the same. Among Black and Hispanic non-college graduates, roughly similar shares of men and women say this was a major reason.

Among college graduates, men and women have similar views on the value of their degree

Looking at those who have graduated from college, men and women are equally likely to see value in the experience. Overall, 49% of four-year college graduates say their college education was extremely useful in terms of helping them grow personally and intellectually. Roughly equal shares of men (47%) and women (50%) express this view.

Some 44% of college graduates – including 45% of men and 43% of women – say their college education was extremely useful to them in opening doors to job opportunities. A somewhat smaller share of bachelor’s degree holders (38%) say college was extremely useful in helping them develop specific skills and knowledge that could be used in the workplace (38% of men and 40% of women say this).

There are differences by age on each of these items, as younger college graduates are less likely than older ones to see value in their college education. For example, only a third of college graduates younger than 50, compared with 45% of those 50 and older, say their college experience was extremely useful in helping them develop skills and knowledge that could be used in the workplace.

Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

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New Ofsted report finds schools need to add depth to their RE curriculum

Ofsted has today published a subject report looking at how religious education (RE) is being taught in England’s schools.

• Leaders are keen to improve the quality of education in RE .
• The RE curriculum is often superficially broad and lacks depth.
• In secondary schools, teachers focus too much on what pupils need to know for exams.

Read the ‘Deep and meaningful? The religious education subject report’ .

The report draws on evidence from visits to a sample of primary and secondary schools last year.

Inspectors found that leaders have been keen to improve the quality of education in RE . However, evidence shows that there has been little progress since Ofsted’s last subject report in 2013. Today’s report finds there is still a lack of clarity on the curriculum and recommends that government should provide better guidance about what should be taught and when.

While the report notes some examples of stronger practice, it concludes that the RE curriculum in most schools is superficially broad but lacks depth. Where the curriculum tries to cover many religions, pupils generally remember very little. Where the curriculum prioritises depth of study, pupils learn much more.

The report also shows that the content of some secondary curriculums is restricted by what teachers decide pupils need to know for their Key Stage 4 exams. Sometimes pupils practice GCSE style assessments before they have mastered enough substantive knowledge.

Ofsted also found that a significant proportion of schools do not meet the statutory requirement to teach religious education at all stages of a pupils’ journey through school.

Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, said:

A strong RE curriculum is not only important for pupils’ cultural development, it is a requirement of law and too many schools are not meeting that obligation. I hope that the examples of good RE curriculum in our report help schools develop their own practice and support the development of a strong RE curriculum for all.

The report contains a number of recommendations for schools, including that they should:

Make sure there is a distinct curriculum in place for teaching RE at all key stages. This should be rigorous and challenging and it demonstrably build on what pupils already know.

Leaders in secondary schools should design the curriculum to meet or exceed exam board specifications, rather than be driven by them.

Make sure that all teachers have the subject and pedagogical knowledge that they need to teach RE well.

Organise the timetable for RE so that gaps between teaching are minimised.

Provide opportunities for pupils to review and build on important knowledge over time. Pupils should be able to use the knowledge that they gained in previous years as the curriculum becomes increasingly more complex and demanding.

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Media Center 4/16/2024 12:00:00 PM Saquandra Heath

Michigan committed NCAA violations in football program

Committee on infractions splits case; formal decision to be released later.

Michigan and five individuals who currently or previously worked for its football program have reached an agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on recruiting violations and coaching activities by noncoaching staff members that occurred within the football program, and the appropriate penalties for those violations. A Committee on Infractions panel has approved the agreement. One former coach did not participate in the agreement, and that portion of the case will be considered separately by the Committee on Infractions, after which the committee will release its full decision. 

The agreed-upon violations involve impermissible in-person recruiting contacts during a COVID-19 dead period, impermissible tryouts, and the program exceeding the number of allowed countable coaches when noncoaching staff members engaged in on- and off-field coaching activities (including providing technical and tactical skills instruction to student-athletes).  The negotiated resolution also involved the school's agreement that the underlying violations demonstrated a head coach responsibility violation and the former football head coach failed to meet his responsibility to cooperate with the investigation. The school also agreed that it failed to deter and detect the impermissible recruiting contacts and did not ensure that the football program adhered to rules for noncoaching staff members.

The committee will not discuss further details in the case to protect the integrity of the ongoing process, as the committee's final decision — including potential violations and penalties for the former coach — is pending.

By separating the cases, the Division I Committee on Infractions publicly acknowledges the infractions case and permits the school and the participating individuals to immediately begin serving their penalties while awaiting the committee's final decision on the remaining contested portion of the case. That decision will include any findings and penalties for the former coach. This is the fourth case where the committee has used multiple resolution paths. 

The agreed-upon penalties in this case include three years of probation for the school, a fine and recruiting restrictions in alignment with the Level I-Mitigated classification for the school. The participating individuals also agreed to one-year show-cause orders consistent with the Level II-Standard and Level II-Mitigated classifications of their respective violations.

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