During Phase III of the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), states will assess progress on implementing their SSIPs. This assessment entails evaluating and reporting on progress toward short-term and long-term outcomes as well as the SiMR. The purpose of this interactive self-assessment tool is to lead those within a state responsible for…

Charter school authorizing is inherently contextual work, and each charter school authorizer is the expert on their own context and portfolio of schools. This toolkit is a self-guided resource for authorizers to "identify" indicators of distress, "audit" their current data collection methods for evaluating indicators of…

Although school failure and school improvement are complex challenges that look different in different contexts, patterns and trends associated with schools in distress are emerging. This brief describes the characteristics of schools when they show signs of early distress from the perspectives of school leaders and governing board members. The…

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare developed a national data standards strategy and implementation plan to enhance the comparability, quality and coherence of information across the Australian education and training sectors, including early childhood education, school education, vocational education and training (VET) and higher…

The National Forum on Education Statistics convened the Data Disaggregation of Racial/Ethnic Subgroups Working Group to identify best practices for disaggregating data on racial/ethnic subgroups. This guide is intended to identify some of the overarching benefits and challenges involved in data disaggregation; recommend appropriate practices for…

Since 2010, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has periodically administered the "Strong Foundations" survey, which documents the content, structure, and effective use of state postsecondary student unit record systems (PSURSs). This report highlights the results of the fourth administration of the survey,…

This report addresses two key questions about postsecondary student unit record data systems (PSURSs): (1) What data are collected by various parties; and (2) how do these entities use the data to inform policy decisions? This 2016 report is both a follow-up and a redesign of two previous "Strong Foundations" reports by SHEEO (2010 and…

The Sustainability Rubric is a tool for SEAs to use in assessing the sustainability of any reform initiative (for example, implementing an educator effectiveness system). The rubric introduces a succinct description of the three primary categories of sustainability: context for sustaining reform, system capacity and performance management. The…

This companion document to the "Sustainability Rubric" (see ED611436) contains a series of exercises designed to answer the question, "I want to make our reforms sustainable--where do I start?" The workbook is designed to help a designated facilitator lead a series of meetings for the appropriate team in a State Education…

This report presents the deliberations of the Northwest Regional Advisory Committee (NW RAC), one of 10 RACs established under the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 to assess the educational needs of the region. The Northwest RAC accepted its charge to identify educational needs and to make recommendations, working collaboratively as…

J. Vella, P. Berardinelli, and J. Burrow (1998) described the "accountability process" of program evaluation. This process was implemented to evaluate a Parents as Teachers program after a year of operation. Evaluation included determining goals, identifying objectives, and determining the focus. Critical elements were identified for…