The Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS) Class of 2014 consistently outperformed graduates across Maryland and the nation on all sections of the ACT, according to the ACT, Inc. annual report that was released Wednesday, August 20, 2014. Thirty percent of the graduates in the MCPS Class of 2014 took the ACT exam. According to the ACT,…

This paper traces the development of teacher candidate benchmarks at one liberal arts institution. Begun as a classroom assessment activity over ten years ago, the benchmarks, through collaboration with professional development school partners, now serve as a primary measure of teacher candidates' performance in the final phases of the teacher…

This evaluation report provides details for school year 2013 on the percentage of primary students who met or exceeded grade-level reading benchmarks on the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools' (MCPS) Assessment Program in Primary Reading (AP-PR). The percentage remained above 90% for kindergarten students and showed a small decrease for…

This brief report offers analysis of ACT and SAT results from 2008 to 2013 in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region. The brief focuses on the increase in test participation rates and points to policies that SREB states initiated that affected these rates. Five SREB states currently require 100 percent student participation on the…

Urban district reform has been hampered by the challenge of understanding and supporting the tremendous complexity of district change. Improving this understanding through actionable, practice-based research is the purpose of this study. The authors began the study with the hypothesis that achieving districts both align their instructional systems…

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.…

In a survey of 30 Mid-Atlantic Region education leaders, improving the achievement of No Child Left Behind subgroups (low-income students, students with limited English proficiency, students with disabilities, and students in major racial and ethnic groups) was the top priority in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, despite concerns about the…

The 1988 Higher Education Reorganization Act established an accountability process for public colleges and universities in Maryland. The law requires the governing boards of these institutions to submit annual performance accountability reports to the Maryland Higher Education Commission. In 1996, the Commission approved a new accountability…