Great teachers recognize great assessments. As policy and education leaders work to make sure state tests are measuring the problem-solving, writing, and critical-thinking skills students need for success, they should convene and rely on teachers to review test quality and help answer the question: Do the questions on our state test reflect…

No one has a bigger stake in teaching effectiveness than students. Nor are there any better experts on how teaching is experienced by its intended beneficiaries. Only recently have many policymakers and practitioners come to recognize that--when asked the right questions, in the right ways--students can be an important source of information on the…

Since 1973, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has gathered information about student achievement in mathematics. Results of these periodic assessments, produced in print and web-based formats, provide valuable information to a wide variety of audiences. They inform citizens about the nature of students' comprehension of the…

This guide is intended to be useful to educators in high schools and middle schools, to superintendents and school boards, and to state policymakers in planning and executing dropout prevention strategies. The target audience includes school administrators as well as district-level administrators, seeking to help develop practice and policy…

This report is part of South Carolina's effort to move toward "100 percent performance funding" for the state's public colleges and universities and results from a task force's investigation of ways to assess critical thinking. The following eight major findings are reported: (1) policy makers must determine priorities; (2) critical…