Until recently, legal challenges to using value-added models (VAMs) throughout the United States (US) for high-stakes teacher evaluative decisions (e.g., merit pay, tenure, and termination) were unsuccessful, especially in the state of Florida. Hence, prior and still, multiple teachers throughout Florida have been terminated or involuntarily…

We explore the conditions under which short, comparative interrupted time-series (CITS) designs represent valid alternatives to randomized experiments in educational evaluations. To do so, we conduct three within-study comparisons, each of which uses a unique data set to test the validity of the CITS design by comparing its causal estimates to…

School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to…

Screening and monitoring student reading progress can be costly and time consuming. Assessment embedded within the context of online instructional programs can capture ongoing student performance data while limiting testing time outside of instruction. This paper presents two studies that examined the validity of using performance measures from a…

The authors examined the psychometric properties of the Counseling Competencies Scale (CCS; University of Central Florida Counselor Education Faculty, 2009), an instrument designed to assess trainee competencies as measured in their counseling skills, dispositions, and behaviors. There was strong internal consistency for the 4-factor model for…

Value-added evaluations use student test scores to assess teacher effectiveness. How student achievement is judged can depend on which test is used to measure it. Thus it is reasonable to ask whether a teacher's value-added score depends on which test is used to calculate it. Would it change if a different test was used? Specifically, might a…

This report highlights 10 of the most advanced and talked-about teacher evaluation systems nationally: Delaware; Rhode Island; Tennessee; Hillsborough County, Florida; Houston, Texas; New Haven, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, DC (referred to throughout just as Washington); Achievement First (a charter management organization,…

There is a growing body of research on the validity and reliability of value-added measures, but most of this research has focused on elementary grades. Driven by several federal initiatives such as Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and ESEA waivers, however, many states have incorporated value-added measures into the evaluations not only…

Care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs) have advanced and matured, a number of states and localities have undertaken evaluations to validate the systems. Such efforts stem from the desire to ensure that the system is designed and operating in the ways envisioned when the system was established. Given that a central component in a QRIS…

This study attempted to verify points of intersection (POIs) between mathematics and science in the eighth grade Sunshine State Standards (SSS), and to develop a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate these POIs as they were presented in the respective mathematics and science textbooks approved for use in Florida public schools. Shannon and…

This report summarizes research findings and implementation practices for teacher and principal value-added models (VAMs), as a first step in the Team Pennsylvania Foundation's (Team PA) pilot project to inform the development of a full, statewide model evaluation system. We have selected 21 studies that represent key issues and findings in the…

The utility of value-added estimates of teachers' effects on student test scores depends on whether they can distinguish between high- and low-productivity teachers and predict future teacher performance. This article studies the year-to-year variability in value-added measures for elementary and middle school mathematics teachers from five large…

The primary purpose of this article is to describe the development and utility of the Social Interaction Practices for the Preschool Years (SIPPY) questionnaire. The SIPPY is a tool designed to assess teachers' judgments of the acceptability and feasibility, as well as their current use, of literature-supported strategies for promoting the…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) has been implemented in more than 4,000 schools as a means of addressing problem behavior in a systemic fashion. Preliminary outcomes (e.g., office discipline referrals, suspensions) indicate the effectiveness of SWPBS in decreasing school-wide behavior problems and creating a positive school climate.…

The relationships among several suggested indices of school desegregation were examined. The measures were discussed for their utility in the remedy process. Issues involved in the formulation of desegregation indices were related to kinds of information they yielded. Recommendations were made for the properties of an effective index. (Author)