For 6 years, Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools has pursued a major restructuring effort involving 30,000 students and 46 schools and covering all disciplines and grades. This initiative involved five components: developing student outcomes, defining curriculum, developing new assessment tasks, planning for instruction, and providing for…

Educators can develop fair and accurate standards-based grading/reporting by switching to criterion-referenced grading practices; using differentiated criteria (denoting product, process, and progress); clarifying the purpose of each reporting tool; and developing a reporting form that identifies standards, facilitates interpretation, and…

Teachers must learn to distinguish among performance assessments of different quality and appropriateness. Design criteria (cognitive complexity, linguistic appropriateness, content quality and coverage, and meaningfulness) are judged by examining assessment tasks and scoring rubrics. Effects criteria (transfer, generalizability, instructional…

Reviews recent trends in the development and implementation of performance-based incentive programs for teachers and administrators. Looks at program control, administrator and teacher involvement, time frames used, criteria for career advancement, evaluation methods employed, effects of funding on implementation, and program evaluation. Considers…

Widespread dissatisfaction caused a Nevada district to reexamine and revamp its teacher-evaluation process. The new system, which assumes teacher participation in goal setting helps teachers become self-reflective practitioners capable of adjusting their practices, has four domains: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and…