Tom Rochon

Educators and the 2024 Presidential Election: Prioritizing Student Well-Being in Polarizing Times

By Tom Rochon / August 22, 2024

Instead of avoiding discourse surrounding the U.S. presidential election, schools should stake out a higher ground rooted in their educational mission, writes ERB President Tom Rochon. […] read more

Using the Check-In Survey to Enhance Student Growth

By Tom Rochon / July 29, 2024

ERB launched its Check-In Survey in 2022. As important as it is to monitor academic progress, the extent to which a student is able to learn fully to their potential will likely remain a mystery without also understanding how they experience the school culture. […] read more

Navigating the Middle East Conflict and Assessing Mission Success

By Tom Rochon / March 28, 2024

As with any challenge to the value and integrity of schools, this is an opportunity to reaffirm our core commitments as educators. Teaching about the Middle East is part of the educational mission of schools […] read more

Spring Cleaning: Taking the Time to Reflect on the School Year

By Tom Rochon / March 19, 2024

Spring is an ideal part of the year to sequester some good thinking time in order to reflect on what has worked well during the past year, along with what could have gone better. Be unsparing. Take notes. Then set it aside for at least the first half of the summer. […] read more

The Power of Transparency with Your Board of Trustees

By Tom Rochon / January 17, 2024

The respective roles of Board and leadership in upholding excellence and driving change are best maintained through proactive transparency. […] read more

5 Students, 5 Stories: What a Whole Child Perspective Reveals About Student Potential

By Tom Rochon / August 30, 2023

ERB Whole Child data visualizations provide a holistic snapshot of each student, offering insight into the factors that may foster or impede each students’ academic growth. […] read more

Our Whole Child Perspective on the School Mission

By Tom Rochon / August 30, 2023

ERB has developed a Whole Child Solution that combines insights into a student’s academic performance with an understanding of their sense of belonging and engagement in the school community. […] read more

What Is to Be Done? Teaching Writing in the Era of AI

By Tom Rochon / July 17, 2023

The core issue teachers need to consider is this: If writing in the future will be a collaboration between a human and an AI program, then what writing-related skills does a student need to develop? […] read more

ERB Conference 2023 to Feature New Tools that Support Whole Child Education

By Tom Rochon / March 2, 2023

“Each child is a physical, mental and spiritual being, interlocked and intertwined, with each dimension significantly affecting the other two.” William Litterick More than 50 years ago, ERB President William Litterick wrote that assessments of learning must focus on “what children are rather than what they are not.  … Each child is a physical, mental and spiritual being, interlocked and intertwined, with each dimension significantly affecting the other two.” Today we call this a whole child perspective, one that recognizes the connections between a student’s sense of self-worth, their sense of belonging in the school community, and the likelihood of […] read more

Learning Restoration in the COVID Era: A Study of CAIS Member Schools

By Tom Rochon / October 28, 2022

The impact of the COVID pandemic on student learning continues to provoke expressions of deep concern. In this paper, we use ERB test data to compare the impact on student learning from the initial closure of schools in March 2020 versus the impact on learning from the most recently concluded 2021-22 school year. The initial impact on student learning due to school closures in March 2020 was significant, ranging from 30% to 50% in the rate of student learning growth on different CTP subtests. By end of the 2021-22 school year, however, overall student growth rates on CTP subject tests […] read more

Latest Reading

1 + 1 = 3 is around the corner!

We are pleased to announce that the ERB and EMA boards have signed an affiliation agreement to make our merger official. This signing followed a unanimous vote by each board to approve the merger this fall. […] read more

Growth Percentiles: Using CTP to Measure Student Growth

ERB has introduced a new feature to score reporting on 360 Access called Growth Percentiles. While the CTP has always measured students longitudinally, Growth Percentiles now provide a convenient and effective way to interpret student progress. […] read more

Developing an Assessment Strategy and Plan for Your School

When it comes to measuring student growth, independent schools should design an assessment strategy that works best for them, selecting the right combination of tools that align with their mission. Yet educational leaders not only have to decide what to assess and how often but also analyze and use the data. […] read more

Using Data to Measure and Analyze Students’ Social and Emotional Skills

A high-quality K-12 education involves far more than learning the ABCs — or preparing for the SATs. In addition to academics, school is where students learn the essential social and emotional (SEL) skills they need to develop healthy, successful lives. […] read more

ERB and EMA are excited to announce their intent to merge.