Washington Monthly

Arguably, the most important but least understood aspect of education reform today involves efforts to craft a new generation of tests for K-12 schools. These efforts include two "assessment consortia" made up of groups of states and universities recently funded by major federal grants. Several cutting-edge initiatives in the public and private sectors also aim to develop digitized learning systems that offer continual, customized student assessment. Although some of the biggest issues in education hinge on the quality of these tests, policymakers in the nation's capital and education researchers throughout the country are at best vaguely aware of this work. Shedding light on this world of assessment development, so that both policy decisionmakers and the public can understand it, is a classic job for journalists at a publication like the Washington Monthly. The Monthly proposes to publish a sixteen- to twenty-four-page special section on deeper learning and student assessment, followed by a high-profile release event that will be webcast live.

The nonprofit Washington Monthly magazine, founded in 1969, publishes independent public policy journalism. Known for taking on both liberal and conservative ideologues, the Washington Monthly scrutinizes in depth how Congress, the federal government, and the American political system work, or don’t, and offers over-the-horizon, evidence-based solutions to help make them work better. A three-year general operating support grant will strengthen the magazine’s ability to achieve its overall mission by allowing it to produce more investigative reports on Congress, publish more distinguished writers and thinkers—including other Madison Initiative grantees—and invest in business-side activities that can increase revenues.