Colloquium - David Kaplan - February 19, 2026

Speaker: David Kaplan, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Date/Time: Thursday, February 19, 2026, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET

Title: On the Development of Probabilistic Projections of Country-level Progress to the UN SDG Indicator of Minimum Proficiency in Reading and Mathematics

Abstract: As of this writing, there are five years remaining for countries to reach their Sustainable Development Goals deadline of 2030 as agreed to by the member countries of the United Nations. Countries are, therefore, naturally interested in projections of progress toward these goals. A variety of statistical measures have been used to report on country-level progress toward the goals, but they have not utilized methodologies explicitly designed to obtain optimally predictive measures of rate of progress as the foundation for projecting trends. The focus of this presentation is to provide Bayesian probabilistic projections of progress to SDG indicator 4.1.1, attaining minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics, with particular emphasis on competencies among lower secondary school children. Using data from the OECD PISA, as well as indicators drawn from the World Bank, the OECD, UNDP, and UNESCO, we employ a novel combination of Bayesian latent growth curve modeling Bayesian model averaging to obtain optimal estimates of the rate of progress in minimum proficiency percentages and then use those estimate to develop probabilistic projections into the future over-all for all countries in the analysis. Four case study countries are also presented to show how the methods can be used for individual country projections.

Bio: David Kaplan is a Hilldale Professor and Richard L. Venezky Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Kaplan holds affiliate appointments in the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Population Health Sciences and the Center for Demography and Ecology. Dr. Kaplan’s program of research focuses on the development of Bayesian statistical methods for education research. His work on these topics is directed toward applications to large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal survey designs. Dr. Kaplan is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and served as the chair of its Research Advisory Committee. Kaplan is a recipient of the Samuel J. Messick Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 5); a past-President of the Psychometric Society; a fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 5); a recipient of the Alexander Von Humboldt Research Award; and a fellow of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories; and was a Jeanne Griffith Fellow at the National Center for Education Statistics. Dr. Kaplan received his Ph.D. in education from UCLA in 1987.

Website: https://edpsych.education.wisc.edu/fac-staff/kaplan-david/