Glenn Milewski
To help families understand the “bigger picture” behind their child’s assessment data, we are launching ERB Family Report to empower educators to present this information—including key findings and next steps—in a simple, digestible format. […] read more
New Updates to Milestones Norms for Fall 2022 Milestones is an interim assessment of reading and mathematics that complements the CTP. When it was first launched in the fall of 2020, ERB used CTP data to construct Milestones norms. This was appropriate given that Milestones and CTP share the same score scale and use very similar test specifications. After two years of administration, ERB determined that it collected sufficient data to construct norms based on actual Milestones test-takers. These norms better reflect students’ performance on Milestones and are more useful to members interpreting results. ERB will keep adding years to the Milestones norm […] read more
CTP Norms Fall 2022 As the 2022-2023 school year gets underway, we want to update you on the latest with CTP norms and explain how we developed the current CTP norms in relation to pre and post-pandemic data. CTP norms for the fall 2021 test administrations were frozen due to anomalies in the fall 2020 data (e.g., low volume, non-representative samples, and COVID disruptions). Norms were unfrozen in the fall of 2022 given: the desire for members to understand performance in relation to the pandemic context, and a rebound in test taking that occurred as members adapted to schooling during […] read more
What is PEG™? PEG, or Project Essay Grade, is the automated scoring system at the core of ERB Writing Practice. It was invented in the 1960s by Ellis Batten Page, a former high school English teacher, who spent “many long weekends sifting through stacks of papers wishing for some help.” His guiding principles? 1) the more we write, the better writer we become, and 2) computers can grade as reliably as their human counterparts (Page, 2003). The state of computers at the time of Page’s invention did not leave much room for automation, so PEG lay dormant until the mid-1980s. […] read more
By Glenn Milewski and Adrienne Hu Introduction At ERB, our goal is to help schools see the potential in every student. We believe a great way to do this is by offering assessments at various points of a student’s career and enabling educators to explore and extract insight from assessment data using 360 Access. One way our members understand student learning is by comparing their assessment results to ERB norms. The purpose of norms is to describe the test performance of a reference group of test-takers. Norms are useful only insofar as the data sets used to compute them represent […] read more
Latest Reading
How Data-Driven Decision-Making Helps Drive School Improvement
As an educator, assessment data can help inform your decision-making, support your reaccreditation efforts, and help you develop a culture of continuous improvement. […] read more
Examining the Factors That Impact Social and Emotional Skills: Data from ERB SelfWise
The findings of an ERB pilot study of more than 2,000 students offer important lessons for educators and school leaders as they build and iterate social and emotional skill development programs. […] read more
What Data from the ERB Check-In Survey Tell Us About Student Well-Being at School
During the 2022-2023 school year, 14 ERB member schools piloted the Check-In Survey with over 2,000 students in grades 4-8. The study revealed both persistent challenges and powerful takeaways for educators. […] read more
The Distinctive Value of Independent Schools
Independent schools are non-profit, mission-driven institutions governed by a board of trustees and funded by tuition and charitable contributions. […] read more