The 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well are American Students Learning?

The Brown Center Report on American Education provides an accurate, nonpartisan, data-driven account of American elementary and secondary education. First published in 2000,the report continues to use the latest and best evidence available to evaluate student achievement in America's schools. Its purpose is four-fold: to determine the direction of achievement in U.S. public schools; to gauge the significance of changes: to uncover the policies and practices influencing the direction of student achievement; and finally, to figure out whether the public is getting the full story on student learning.

This year's report focuses on misplaced eighth-grade algebra students. The report finds that the nation's push to challenge more students by placing them in advanced math classes in eighth grade has had unintended and damaging consequences. Some 120,000 middle-schoolers are now struggling in advanced classes for which they are woefully unprepared.

Tom Loveless is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution and was previously the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings. He is the author of the annual Brown Center Reports on American Education.