When lotteries are infeasible, researchers must rely on observational methods to estimate charter effectiveness at raising student test scores. Considerable attention has been paid to observational studies by the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), which have analyzed charter performance in 27 states. However, the…

Teachers have the greatest school-based effect on the achievement of any child in their classrooms, but highly effective principals can positively affect the achievement of every student in their schools. The difference between a highly effective principal and an average one is equal to two-to-seven months of extra learning per year for each child…

In this paper we consider the challenges involved in evaluating teacher preparation programs when controlling for school contextual bias. Including school fixed effects in the achievement models used to estimate preparation program effects controls for school environment by relying on differences among student outcomes within the same schools to…

AN EVALUATION OF ADULT EDUCATION RESEARCH ON SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS CONDUCTED AT CERTAIN INSTITUTIONS WAS REPORTED. IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS WERE CONDUCTED FOR OCCUPATIONAL, LIBERAL, RELATIONAL, AND LITERACY EDUCATION FUNCTIONS. RESEARCH PROCEDURES WERE (1) TO IDENTIFY, SELECT, AND OBTAIN RESEARCH STUDIES, (2) TO MAKE CRITICAL ANALYSES AND…

Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be…

Describes the structure and functioning of a state-supported system of teacher centers and compares it with others. (Editor)

Presents preliminary evaluation findings from Florida's Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program that explore the relationships between educational program quality and program characteristics. Several program characteristics are found to be related to measurements of educational program quality, including proportion of teachers who are…

Provides an overview and a context leading to Florida's efforts to implement an evaluation-driven research and associated quality assurance system for its juvenile justice education policies and practices. The Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program described began implementing Florida's evaluation research and quality assurance system in…

Describes two stages of the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program's pre-, post-, and longitudinal evaluation research and reports on the pilot studies used to explore how to design statewide research on pre- and post-assessment scores and community reintegration outcomes. Findings suggest that higher performing programs produce greater…

Discusses the evaluation of juvenile justice education through Florida's Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program as it involves the integration of multiple data sources. Examines the methodological, political, and bureaucratic obstacles encountered in the development of this evaluation system. (SLD)

The process used in the design and evaluation of modules of instruction with the PLATO IV Computer System for stimulus display and response recording is described. Steps in the instructional design process are listed as problem identification and task analysis, identification of entry characteristics, development of performance objectives,…

Examines the role of politics in the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program's effort to use evaluation research data to inform Florida's juvenile justice education policies and practices. Two examples illustrate that by maintaining an overriding commitment to its evaluation research purpose, the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement…

Describes the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program's implementation of an evaluation research-driven quality assurance process for Florida's juvenile justice educational programs. Reviews the literature on juvenile justice educational practices and describes the educational quality assurance standards and annual modifications that draw…

Measuring History complements the cases presented in Wise Social Studies Practices (Yeager & Davis, 2005). Yeager and Davis highlight the rich and ambitious teaching that can occur in the broad context of state-level testing. In this book, the chapter authors and I bring the particular state history tests more to the fore and examine how…

These proceedings contain 48 presentations and 15 poster abstracts. Papers include "Computer Tasks Required in Selected Undergraduate Agriculture Courses" (Johnson, Ferguson, Vokinnns, Lester); "College of Agriculture Faculty Perceptions of Electronic Technologies in Teaching" (Dooley, Murphy); "Steering Through Turbulent…