The 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education : How Well are American Students Learning? With Sections on International Tests, Who's Winning the Real Race to the Top, and NAEP and the Common Core State Standards

An overarching theme of this year's report is that events in the field of education are not always as they appear to be - and that is especially so with test scores.

Whether it's commentators perpetrating myths of international testing, states winning races while evidencing only mediocre progress, or an eighth-grade test dominated by content below the eighth grade, the story is rarely as simple as it appears on first blush.

This report digs beneath the surface and uncovers some of the complexities of these important issues.