The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 emphasized holding schools accountable for student achievement and academic growth. Accountability was a continued focus as President Obama offered states Race to the Top funding if they included, among other changes, a focus on accountability and identifying low achieving schools. One Midwestern state…

The short-term emphasis engendered by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has focused research predominantly on unraveling the complexities and uncertainties in assessing short-term results, rather than developing methods and assessing results over the longer term. In this paper we focus on estimating long-term gains and address questions important to…

Members of the non-profit organization Education Resource Strategies (ERS) have worked for over a decade with leaders of urban school systems to help them organize talent, time and technology to support great schools at scale. One year into the Federal program they are noticing significant differences in district turnaround approaches, engagement…

Federal officials plan to overhaul the reporting requirements for higher education-based teacher preparation in favor of leaner, outcome-based indicators of program quality, according to plans outlined in the president's fiscal 2012 budget request. To bolster the overhaul, the budget also proposes a $185 million new formula grant program, dubbed…

Two U.S. Department of Education (ED) systems for establishing the initial eligibility and monitoring the performance of postsecondary institutions that participate in ED financial assistance programs were assessed. The evaluation was designed to describe and evaluate the eligibility and certification functions of ED's Eligibility and Agency…

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) is the primary measure of student achievement applied to the grading of the Florida public schools. School grades utilize a point system in which schools are awarded one point for every percent of students: (1) scoring in achievement levels 3-5 in Reading; (2) demonstrating learning gains in…

Although students have been taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Science test for a few years, the State has only recently set the achievement-level standards for the Science test. Science will be included in the school grade calculations for the first time in 2006-07. In addition, although no official guidelines exist…