For years California has been a leader in public education. In 1999, the state implemented some of the strongest content standards in the country through its main accountability metric, the Academic Performance Index (API). The state has also signed onto the Common Core State Standards, taking important steps to ensure its students are college-…

Great leaders make great schools. The most successful school leaders create a school climate of high achievement and continuous improvement, give teachers a voice in decision-making, use data to drive curriculum and instruction, and assure students and parents that everyone at the school is focusing on student success. They know what is going on…

America can no longer afford an education system that fails to use data effectively to guide decisionmaking. The education sector is facing ever-increasing demands to improve student outcomes, reduce burden, increase efficiency, and improve transparency. These demands cannot be met without the strategic and effective use of data. Due to the…

Based on the bestselling book "Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning", and its companion volume, "Data Wise in Action", this DVD and Facilitator's Guide offer insight into one of the most challenging steps in capturing data about school performance: observing and analyzing instructional…

In light of the fact that policy makers are attempting to build accountability systems that will hold teachers, and the teacher education programs that prepared them, accountable for student achievement results, failure on the part of teacher educators to repeatedly and assertively advocate for a significant role in shaping the accountability…

Higher education experts tout learning outcomes assessment as a vehicle for program improvement. To this end the authors share a rubric designed explicitly to evaluate the quality of assessment and how it leads to program improvement. The rubric contains six general assessment areas, which are further broken down into 14 elements. Embedded within…

As part of a national Middle Start initiative led by the Academy for Educational Development (AED), Mid South Middle Start is committed to working with high-poverty schools in the Mid South Delta region to build their capacity to foster students' academic excellence, support the development of young adolescents, and achieve social equity in…

School counselors are required to implement accountability strategies in order to increase student performance and contribute to closing the achievement gap. This study investigates the beliefs and practices of school counselors who have earned national recognition for implementing comprehensive school counseling programs based on identifying…

Keiser College is a private, for-profit Level II institution with thirteen branch campuses throughout Florida. Most of its academic programs are offered at multiple sites. A major concern has been to establish and maintain the consistency of its academic offerings at all campuses as the College expands. Building on a pre- posttesting mechanism…

Information should be gathered on specific features of school learning environments that are effective in maximizing all students' chances for schooling success, particularly the chances of success for special students who require greater-than-usual educational support. Research and educational practice support the contention that information on…

This guide is designed to assist state and local consortia with their evaluation of Tech Prep education programs and with their reporting of Tech Prep program and student outcomes data to meet the accountability requirements of the Perkins Act of 1998. Intended for Tech Prep stakeholders in secondary schools and two-year colleges, the guide also…

Current thinking and research on the nature of formative evaluation of replicable forms of instruction are summarized. Methodologies appropriate for other evaluation roles (e.g. summative) are shown to be often inappropriate for the formative role. This paper attempts to classify sources of information concerning the merit of educational materials…

The New Hampshire Vocational Program Evaluation System (VPES) is designed to: (1) provide program improvement information; (2) provide information on local program effectiveness to aid in designing improvements; and (3) aid in complying with 1976 federal vocational education legislation. The evaluation system is divided into two components:…

The state-administered grant program authorized under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), enacted as Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, is the major source of federal support for adult basic and literacy education programs. The purpose of the program is to provide educational opportunities to adults sixteen…

The Richfield Educational Assessment Program is a districtwide effort to collect specific information about the knowledge, skills, understandings, and attitudes of students in selected areas. The information collected will be used to help Richfield citizens and educators make decisions for program improvement. The program closely parallels the…