The government shutdown has forced the postponement of a study showing how U.S. states stack up to nations around the world on math and science achievement.
Our intrepid colleagues at the on the education world. But I can volunteer one contribution to that: the cancellation of Thursday鈥檚 scheduled release of the NAEP-TIMSS linking study.
The report uses states鈥� 2011 scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, in math and science to project how they would have scored on the Trends in International Math and Science Study, or TIMSS. That allows a comparison of U.S. states with countries and jurisdictions internationally.
Not only was the study鈥檚 release postponed due to the shutdown, the , which administers NAEP, was shut down, too. When we visited the site, we got this message:
Dear Users, Due to a lapse of appropriations and the partial shutdown of the Federal Government, the systems that host nces.ed.gov have been shut down. Services will be restored as soon as a continuing resolution to provide funding has been enacted.
The is still working. But that鈥檚 because the international study center that handles those assessments is based at Boston College.