This paper provides practical guidance for scholars and practitioners looking to develop more rigorous, comprehensive, and inclusive research that could guide proactive efforts to improve access, experiences, and outcomes for college students with disabilities. To do so, we (a) identify critical challenges affecting research and assessment related…

Reviews the Council of Chief State School Officers' effort to establish a nationwide system of educational indicators. Suggests the benefits of such a system. (MCG)

Longitudinal data about individual students and groups of students can be used to track their progress in ways that hold district-level administrators, school principals, and teachers responsible for what's happening in schools. The key is to examine data that show how well individual students perform in specific classrooms in specific schools.…

This resource book is designed to guide school systems through a decision-making process to design an assessment system that is best suited to their particular needs. The assessment system will collect information from children through assessment measures and perhaps other sources of data, such as health records and demographic data. The…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requirement that states prepare and disseminate an annual state report card became effective at the beginning of the 2002-03 school year. Each state agency must also ensure that each local district collects appropriate data, both at the district level and for each school, and includes such data in its annual…

This guidebook aims to provide clear, non-technical descriptions of procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of local gifted education programs in Virginia. The procedures were developed with both external and internal evaluations in mind. The evaluation process is described in four phases: planning, collecting the data, interpreting the data…

Describes the chronological development and data collection processes used in evaluating two construct lesson plan courses concurrently offered by the American College, and comments on an earlier published article by Danny G. Langdon. (Author/JEG)

Designed as a concerted effort to control the paperwork and reduce the number of data collection reports required by the Connecticut State Department of Education, this report lists the forms the department will use in the 1987-88 school year to collect data on the condition and the progress of education in Connecticut. An introductory discussion…

Introductory material offers observations useful to British readers regarding a Canadian educational program assessment manual, which is the main component of this document. The manual was developed at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and revised based upon the experiences of the biological sciences technology and broadcast technology…

Educational systems evaluation is a cyclical process of delineating, obtaining, and providing information for judging decision alternatives. As such, it encompasses much more than measurement. Methods for evaluating systems must be developed, because activities and orientations at this level differ from those of individual students, curricula, or…

During the 1989 Arkansas legislative session, an act was passed mandating the Arkansas Office of Accountability to publish annual reports on school performance. To help educators deal with issues related to systems of educational effectiveness indicators, a seminar for educational stakeholders to ask questions and offer comments about developing…

Students' standardized test scores do little to gauge school program effectiveness. This article suggests that improving the data for monitoring schools, accounting for schools' varying financial picture, and relating outcomes to features capable of being changed will enhance program evaluation and school management. Some state efforts in this…

The state profiles contained in this document are based on a 1989 survey of statewide or systemwide approaches to assessment and outcomes measurement in postsecondary education. All 50 states, the territory of Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia are included. A common format provides information on the following aspects: origins of the…

This introductory level text provides a background for understanding the uses of qualitative research in education, its theoretical and historical underpinnings, and specific methods of educational research. This revised edition places qualitative research into the context of current discussions of research methods and alternative ways of knowing.…

This review identifies options for developing alternate assessments for students with disabilities who are unable to participate in the general district and state assessments used for accountability purposes. It notes that students with disabilities are often excluded from these educational assessments used for accountability and urges development…