The decisions states make regarding what their assessments look like and what kind of information they produce inevitably shape instruction. Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 ushered in an era of testing-based accountability for schools, state assessments have been governed by a set of design decisions that emphasize easily generated,…

As educational needs of students change in response to changing demographics, economic factors, workforce needs, and school accountability requirements, school leaders must continually monitor and adjust curricula and associated methods of instructional delivery to increase student learning. The analysis of student performance data is a critical…

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have recently received waivers to the school accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As the prospects for reauthorizing the Act in the near term are dim, these new accountability systems will be law for at least several years. Drawing on a four-part framework from the…

This appendix presents the data collection instruments used for the "National Evaluation of Title III Implementation: Report on State and Local Implementation" study. The purpose of this study is not to monitor Title III implementation, but to describe the implementation of Title III in states and school districts across the country. The…

This report highlights the perceptions of parents, whose opinions are rarely sought and whose voices tend to be lost in decisions about how assessments are developed, administered and used. Parents are key consumers of assessment information--and, as taxpayers, they pay for assessments. Classroom teachers and district administrators have the most…

Federal education policy will soon undergo a major revision, with significant consequences for the state's own policy and practices. This report seeks to help federal and state policymakers consider this restructuring and one of its core questions: How should schools and school districts be held accountable for the academic progress of their…

Jaschik's January 2009 article, "Assessing Assessment," describes initiatives designed to extend and broaden nascent assessment of college students learning. In the post-Spellings era of No Child Left Behind, many responded to the continuing discussion, "Why now?" He reports on two organizations, the National Institute for…

Although the federal No Child Left Behind program judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a 10-year student-level panel data set from North Carolina, we examine how school-specific pressure…

In education, artificial intelligence (AI) has not made much headway. In the one area where it would seem poised to lend the most benefit--assessment--the reliance on standardized tests, intensified by the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which holds schools accountable for whether students pass statewide exams, precludes its use.…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, 2002) has produced an explosion of interest in the use of assessment to measure and improve student learning. Initially focused on annual state tests, educators quickly learned that results came too little and too late to identify students who were falling behind. At the same time, evidence from the…

Public school districts in the Mississippi (MS) Delta are under severe pressure to make rapid and adaptable changes in response to the federal legislation No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the MS Plan for Student Achievement: Assessment, Accreditation, and Accountability. These reform Acts require higher student performance standards and new…

Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, teachers and parents have witnessed a series of heated debates on the most basic issues of literacy assessment-what to assess and how to assess it. In particular, the controversy rages over DIBELS and OSELA, two popular early literacy assessment instruments. The purpose of this article is to address the…

In recent years, increasing numbers of professional development programs have dealt with assessment literacy for teachers and/or administrators. Is assessment literacy merely a fashionable focus for today's professional developers or, in contrast, should it be regarded as a significant area of professional development interest for many years to…

In this policy brief, the author explores the problems with attainment measures when it comes to evaluating performance at the school level, and explores the best uses of value-added measures. These value-added measures, the author writes, are useful for sorting out-of-school influences from school influences or from teacher performance, giving…

Some states are developing alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS) to measure the academic achievement of some students with disabilities (Albus, Lazarus, Thurlow, & Cormier, 2009; Lazarus, Thurlow, Christensen, & Cormier, 2007). These assessments measure the same content as the general assessment for a given…