Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies.…

Monitoring Trends in Educational Growth (MTEG) offers a flexible, collaborative approach to developing and implementing an assessment of learning outcomes that yields high-quality, nationally relevant data. MTEG is a service that involves ACER staff working closely with each country to develop an assessment program that meets the country's…

Education data are growing in quantity, quality, and value. When appropriately used to guide action, data can be a powerful tool for improving school operations, teaching, and learning. Education stakeholders who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to appropriately access, analyze, and interpret data will be able to use data to take…

The Colorado Graduates Initiative demonstrates seven factors that must be present to build an effective statewide collaborative effort to increase high school graduation rates. These include: 1) Leadership to unite diverse stakeholders on specific, common goals and catalyze them into action; 2) A focus on data, particularly on actionable, early…

This article discusses how the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability mechanism of No Child Left Behind makes use of supposedly objective standardized test scores to describe schools in a certain way when the very same results could serve to draw very different conclusions. Examining the proficiency scores of students from a specific middle…

Graduation rates have become a prominent feature in the landscape of high school reform and within the larger world of educational policy. Studies conducted over the past several years have repeatedly demonstrated that far fewer American students are completing high school with diplomas than had previously been realized. Whereas the conventional…

In contemporary academic literature and in many national curricula, there is a widespread acceptance that critical thinking should be an important dimension of Education. Teachers and researchers recognize the importance of developing students critical thinking, but there are still great difficulties in defining and assessing critical-thinking…

This article discusses Rochester's two academic models that offer different tools for different purposes--measuring individual learning and measuring what affects learning. The main focus of currently available growth measures is formative assessment--providing data to inform instructional planning. Value-added assessment is not a student…

This report provides estimates of job and occupational mobility by demographic, educational and labour market variables using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) "Labour Mobility" survey for 2002. The report provides information on the effects of these variables on the probability of job separation. It also identifies the…

The purpose of this document is to give state directors of special education, especially those who are new in their positions, a guide to understanding their role and responsibilities with respect to the collection, analysis and reporting of post-school outcomes data for Indicator 14 of the Part B State Performance Plan (SPP). To assist state…