While numerous studies have been conducted to determine the impact of grade retention on future academic achievement and psychosocial development, few studies have targeted Florida-specific grade retention as mandated by Florida law. As it exists today, there is very little evidence that the practice of retaining students resulted in increased…

A history of the achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) could be documented in different ways. A chronological history might be the obvious approach, but in the author's view, that could miss the most salient aspects of setting student performance standards on an assessment like NAEP. Further, new initiatives…

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act requires local education agencies to publicly disseminate school performance data. In response, districts and state departments of education have created "school report cards" that vary widely. While data dissemination policies can improve institutional legitimacy and ensure ongoing support, we suggest…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) placed a new focus and accountability on the achievement levels of English learners by requiring that they develop English proficiency and meet the same academic standards that all children are expected to meet by year 2014. Administrators and teachers are looking at ways English learners might progress more…

The development of the horse and buggy was a necessary first step toward the development of the automobile; in fact, the first cars were built by putting engines on buggies. So it is with school accountability. The failure of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to measure school performance is well known among researchers and, to some degree, among…

In their paper, Black and Wiliam said: "The way that processes of aggregation are carried out have profound implications for the extent to which summary judgments about individuals or institutions can be "reverse engineered" to provide information about the meanings of those judgments." The author of this article could not…

This study investigated several aspects of occupational skill assessment as implemented in one state: (1) What is the extent to which student achievement on the cognitive component was related to their achievement on the psychomotor component of the technical skill assessments? (2) How efficiently was their overall composite attainment calculated?…

The U.S. Department of Education has not yet published an official guidance document for using NAEP achievement level scores to confirm state testing results. A review of the literature, however, identified four principles that inform the valid use of NAEP scores in a confirming analysis. The principles address the appropriate NAEP statistics to…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is potentially the most significant educational initiative to have been enacted in decades. Among the salient elements of this initiative are requirements that all students have qualified teachers and be given the opportunity to attend highquality schools. The NCLB legislation also requires that states raise…

Summary of Koret Task Force report on the state of elementary/secondary education. Highlights findings of 1983 National Commission on Excellence in Education report "A Nation at Risk" and the response thereto. Discusses why educational change efforts have resulted in so little improvement in student performance. Highlights findings and…

The author of this article challenges a common assumption made by both critics and defenders of standardized-testing technology (or psychometry), namely that standardized tests "measure" something (culture, ability, etc.). It argues that psychometric practice cannot be classified as a form of measurement and instead is best understood as…