All students deserve a great education, one that affords every opportunity for them to grow into knowledgeable and successful adults. To date, efforts to improve education have operated on a model of mass production, assuming--wrongly--that what works for some students must work for all. To change that model, students and their parents, teachers,…

Immigrant youth who are designated as English language learners in American schools--whom we refer to as "emergent bilinguals"--are increasingly framed by numerical calculations. Utilizing the notion of assemblage from actor-network theory (ANT), we trace how emergent bilinguals are discursively constructed by officials, administrators,…

In the push to bring data to bear on all of the important education issues of the day, one essential fact is often overlooked: Not all indicators are created equal. This book provides a comprehensive approach for understanding how statistical measures of achievement are developed, evaluated, and interpreted. Given the extent to which…

The federal government promised that it would limit waiver grants to states for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). It largely kept that promise, but states did gain significant flexibility through amendments to accountability plans. OLS model estimates showed that larger, more affluent, and more Republican states submitted more amendment…

This "Practitioner's Guide to Growth Models," commissioned by the Technical Issues in Large-Scale Assessment (TILSA) and Accountability Systems & Reporting (ASR), collaboratives of the "Council of Chief State School Officers," describes different ways to calculate student academic growth and to make judgments about the…

The Critical Success Factors Report is the North Carolina Community College System's major accountability document. This annual performance report is based on data compiled from the previous year and serves to inform colleges and the public on the performance of North Carolina's 58 community colleges. In 1993, the State Board of Community Colleges…

This guide is designed to inform school directors about the value of a data dashboard and to provide information on how districts can create a data dashboard for school directors. A data dashboard is a tool for viewing and analyzing student achievement and performance data. Key data for monitoring student achievement and directing policy level…

The use of statistics on grades as a criteria for accountability is limiting and misleading. Alternative indicators of school performance are suggested, including the Scottish Education Data Archive. (JMF)

This article reports on the central recommendation of the federal task force for a way to better handle dropout and graduation rates. Made up of 10 academics and government statisticians, the panel comprising the Task Force on Graduation, Completion, and Dropout Indicators was formed in the fall of 2003 to advise the U.S. Department of Education's…

Current formula funding practices in the South and implications for the future are analyzed. Formula funding systems are used in 12 of the 14 states belonging to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). Changes that have occurred in the formulas of each state since 1973-74 are described. Data from 1977-78 academic year are compared to the…

The State University of New York's (SUNY) Budget System and the Course and Section Analysis (CASA) System, which were developed to ensure accountability at the campus level, are described. Problem areas and resulting inaccurate and potentially misleading information are examined for the 12 state university colleges. The Budget System and CASA…

This 1991-92 report for correctional education in Canada provides analysis as well as statistical information for education programs provided during the fiscal year. A national overview contains data dealing with effectiveness based on participation, efficiency based on student/teacher ratio, and efficiency based on cost per full-time equivalent…

The Accountability Atlas presents information about the students, programs, staff, and services of the City College of San Francisco (CCSF), California. Most of the information is for the 1993-94 academic year, with some longitudinal data provided. The atlas is divided into the following six chapters: student access; student success; student…

This report, submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, contains summary details of Delaware students' growth in the areas of reading, mathematics, writing, science and social studies. The results reported herein are part of a long-term effort to gather data on Delaware students' educational progress and use the data to inform decisions about…

Proceedings of the 1979 Financial Measures Conference which assess "Progress in Measuring Financial Conditions of Colleges and Universities" are presented. Focus is the prospective uses of financial indicators and the results of attempts to employ indicators at the institutional, state, regional, and federal levels for management, and…