The Mastery-Based Learning Collaborative (MBLC) is a demonstration project taking place in 47 schools across Washington to help decision makers understand what quality mastery-based (or competency-based) learning looks like, how long it takes to implement, and what resources are necessary. The schools receive funding, coaching, and professional…

Quite commonly, reports on elementary and secondary school teachers begin with the rather obvious notion that the quality of instruction is critical to student learning. Decades of federal policymaking have been built on the premise that good pre-service preparation is an effective route to quality teaching and, ultimately, improved educational…

P.S. 52 Sheepshead Bay School in Brooklyn, New York, serves more than 850 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. After scores on the 2014 New York State English language arts assessment were unsatisfactory, first-year principal Rafael Alvarez searched for a way to improve academic outcomes for his…

This guide offers educators, program managers, administrators, and researchers a resource for building capacity for monitoring program outcomes. It provides concise definitions of program monitoring components and a framework for assessing program progress. Examples demonstrate the relationships among program components: outcomes, indicators,…

Across the education field, there is unusual consensus that strong teacher leaders are key to improving our nation's schools. Unfortunately, clear expectations for what teacher leaders should do, and strategies to prepare them to do it, are few and far between. One recent survey found that while 86 percent of schools have teacher leader roles,…

This report highlights the critical role family literacy and learning play in breaking down barriers between different learning contexts and engaging hard-to-reach adults and children in education. This report was developed as part of a family learning project initiated by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2016. Based on the…

State educational accountability models are in transition. Whether modifying the present accountability system to comply with existing state and federal requirements or anticipating new ones--such as the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Race to the Top competition--recording the experiences of state education agencies (SEAs) that are currently…

This report reviews, in the context of their budget and staff resources, selected activities of six Federal agencies with significant responsibility for enforcing civil rights laws. They are: (1) the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights; (2) The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights; (3) the Department of…

The Report is organized by Performance Measure, followed by a collection of lessons learned, not only from the findings but also from the process of obtaining them. Appendices offer the original protocols, and the full texts of the original Network Evaluation Framework and the Network Accountability Report Plan. An Executive Summary provides a…

This paper offers guidelines for policy makers who are responsible for establishing incentive programs for teachers. It provides a framework for: (1) identifying performance-based incentive systems; (2) examining their underlying assumptions; (3) classifying program operations (types of incentives, methods of reward delivery, timing and types of…

The "Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998" requires that the Secretary provide the appropriate committees of Congress copies of annual reports received by the department from each eligible agency that receives funds under the Act. Congress has made "accountability for results" a central focus of the…

This book has two goals: to convey to policymakers at the Federal and state levels a clearer understanding of vocational education and what can reasonably be expected of it and to develop an approach to Federal vocational education policy that is more performance, and less process, oriented. Chapter 1 provides a general overview of vocational…

Scandal has once again brought attention to the nation's child welfare system. In response to the news that Florida's child welfare bureaucracy could not account for hundreds of children supposedly in its care (2002), investigative journalists have found evidence of similar problems in other states. Ironically, the news that some states cannot…

Analyzes state performance incentive programs in California, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Findings suggest that incentive programs vary in effectiveness, indicating that program design is critical to success, and that most of the programs do not have high monetary costs. (FMW)

This speech presents instructional evaluation techniques currently used in Belleville, Illinois. These are based on two criteria: (1) community opinion, and (2) performance level of students. To discover community opinions, needs, priorities, and levels of support, questionnaires are distributed, presenting a series of curricular goals and…