Recent educational accountability efforts have married student assessments with reform mandates and sanctions. As a result, students--beginning in early elementary grades--are feeling the pressures of this new era of high-stakes accountability. This article chronicles a story of the consequences of high-stakes testing on a father and his son.…

Coburn and Turner (this issue) present an intriguing framework for understanding how data has come to be used in the current high accountability environments in education. In this framework, they connect various processes of data use within organizational and political contexts. Data use is presented using an ecological perspective that deepens…

The focus article by Coburn and Turner (this issue) seeks to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding data use in the context of data-use interventions. This commentary focuses on what the authors see as a glaring omission in what is otherwise a valuable framework: the issue of "useful data." It is their contention that the usefulness…

Arguments supporting the use of the exploratory case method in evaluating reviews of multivocal literature are repeated, and points of general agreement with M. Q. Patton and R. F. Elmore are reviewed. Disagreement is expressed with R. K. Yin about the value of grounded theory in analyzing multivocal literature. (SLD)

Reviews of multivocal literature are assessments of what can be learned from a given body of literature and assessments of the claims on which that knowledge is based. Methodological rigor is less likely to be a problem in such reviews than is lack of independent judgment. (SLD)

The Senate confirmation hearings concerning Robert Gates as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) highlight the problems evaluators share with the CIA of keeping policy imperatives out of the search for truth. The CIA at least has a structure for keeping information pure, but many evaluations do not. (SLD)

The purpose of this report is to comment on practice in the use of existing data bases in program evaluation and school improvement and to explore directions of increased and improved use. The report's impetus is the role that existing data plays in current efforts in local school districts and the possibilities for the future. To a great extent,…

Describes the use of online accounting systems as a means of integrating diverse data and providing different levels of analysis for managers. An appendix provides examples of reports produced by online systems. (CLB)

Data from nine Michigan elementary, middle, and high schools highlight the challenges and common strategies found in the use of student assessment data to meet public demands for accountability. The information gathered from assessment tools varies by frequency and type. Educators have, historically, underutilized data to guide practice because…