One of the most enduring and contentious debates in education circles concerns the best way to hold schools and districts accountable for improving outcomes for students and closing achievement gaps. Lawmakers, teachers, district administrators, parents, and other stakeholders--all with strong and differing opinions--have wrestled for decades with…

Like other states across the country, the seven states in the Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The…

Formerly excluded from measures of educational performance, students with disabilities (SWDs) are now explicitly recognized in federal and state accountability systems. At the national level, the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) laid the foundation for accountability for SWDs by requiring states to include…

On March 4th, 2010, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released its annual statewide Dropout Report covering the 2008-09 school year. The charts in this report show the dropout rate for Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) compared to the state as a whole, to other large school districts in North Carolina, and by federal No…

The Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) was initiated to allow states to experiment with adjustments to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) status accountability system in order to improve the validity of AYP determinations by giving schools credit for students who are making significant growth. The pilot allowed states, districts, and schools to…

This report details Title III accountability policies and outcomes for K-12 English language learner (ELL) students for school year 2007/08 in the six Southeast Region states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina) under the Title III annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAO) provision of the No Child…

The purpose of this paper is to promote clearer understanding of the graduation-rate debate by distilling the policy developments and controversy surrounding the measurement of these rates over the last decade. The paper concludes with a discussion of the move toward a federally mandated common metric for graduation rates. The No Child Left Behind…

Success in Sight focuses on the interrelated parts of an education system. This systemic school improvement intervention is designed to address schools' specific needs while building their capacities to plan, implement, and evaluate school improvement practices. It is intended to help schools, leadership teams, and teachers systemically engage in…

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) initiated the Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) in November 2005 with the goal of approving up to ten states to incorporate growth models in school adequate yearly progress (AYP) determinations under the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA"). After extensive reviews, nine states…

The 2013 School Progress Report for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) provides state, county, and individual school performance data, as well as information on student attendance, high school graduation rates, and the professional qualifications of teachers at the state, district, and school levels for the 2012-2013 school year. Montgomery…

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) analyzed trends over four years in the number of schools and school districts that did not make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in raising student achievement under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Using data from the Consolidated State Performance Reports submitted to the U.S. Department of Education by all…

Educational progress has been moving in the right direction for several years in Alabama. Now, with the implementation of Alabama's own Plan 2020, an even higher level of accountability for students, teachers, administrators, support systems, and schools/school systems, Alabama is poised to experience unprecedented growth. Add to that, the Alabama…

As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation chronicled in its last year's Fordham Sponsorship Accountability Report, "Seeking Quality in the Face of Adversity", the 2008-09 school year was a brutal one during which schools, and their peers, faced many existential threats. The 2009-10 school year was Fordham's fifth year as a charter school…

This descriptive analysis provides a statistical profile of California's Title I school districts in program improvement. As an independent analysis of these districts in the aggregate, it is intended to inform the context for district improvement as California rolls out and refines its district intervention strategies. A key finding of this study…

In 2005, all 50 state governors made an unprecedented commitment to voluntarily implement a common, more reliable formula for calculating their states' high school graduation rates by signing the National Governors Association (NGA) Graduation Counts Compact. Four years later, progress is steady. Twenty states now report that they use the Compact…