News & Blog

Over the last couple of years, the Texas Legislature has passed a series of bills with major implications for educators and students throughout the state. Everything from the way tests are administered to the tests themselves— and even how teachers are compensated— is in a state of transition.

The Texas State Legislature passed House Bill 3 in 2019, resulting in a massive potential increase in the level of compensation that quality teachers can receive. This new Teacher Incentive Allotment promises to more effectively reward high-performing teachers and incentivize them to stay in teaching, and in Texas. Here’s everything you need to know about the Teacher Incentive Allotment and how it will impact educators and school districts across the state.

The Texas state legislature recently voted to pass House Bill 3906, which ‘addresses several components related to assessments and administration.’ Written with input from actual educators and designed to provide more flexibility at the campus level when administering tests, HB 3906 should be a positive step forward for Texas education. Here’s a guide to all of the main changes that have come from this new bill, including the most important impacts it will have on teachers.

The South Carolina Department of Education recently updated their standards for science instruction and assessment, moving from the existing SCAS standards to the new South Carolina College- and Career-Ready (SCCCR) Science Standards. This updated curriculum has not yet been implemented in the statewide assessments, but educators can prepare now thanks to a new set of science subjects in Progress Learning built around the updated SCCCR standards for Grades 3-12.

McREL International conducted a rigorous external study of the USATestprep Progress platform, using 6th Grade Mathematics achievement to determine the effect of the implementation of USATestprep Progress, for just one year, on student achievement.

Out of over 2,300 total schools in the United States that offer Bachelor’s degrees, more than half (1,240) have said that they will no longer require any students to submit their ACT or SAT scores in order to apply for admission in fall of 2021.