K-12 English language proficiency tests that assess multiple content domains (e.g., listening, speaking, reading, writing) often have subsections based on these content domains; scores assigned to these subsections are commonly known as subscores. Testing programs face increasing customer demands for the reporting of subscores in addition to the…

Background: Many in education argue for the importance of incorporating teacher judgements in the assessment and reporting of student performance. Advocates of such an approach are cognisant, though, that obtaining a satisfactory level of consistency in teacher judgements poses a challenge. Purpose: This study investigates the extent to which the…

This paper aims to investigate how stability varies with the approach used in estimating school performance in a large sample of English primary schools. The results show that (a) raw performance is considerably more stable than adjusted performance, which in turn is slightly more stable than growth model estimates; (b) schools' performance…

Initiatives to increase leadership accountability coupled with efforts to promote data-driven leadership have led to widespread adoption of instruments to assess school leaders. In this paper we present a decision matrix that practitioners and researchers can use to facilitate instrument selection. Our decision matrix focuses on the psychometric…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

Value-added scores from tests of college learning indicate how score gains compare to those expected from students of similar entering academic ability. Unfortunately, the choice of value-added model can impact results, and this makes it difficult to determine which results to trust. The research presented here demonstrates how value-added models…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

The purpose of this study was to determine if principal tenure, principal stability, and principal educational experience in public education along with school-level variables predicted elementary school student achievement. A second purpose was to examine whether there was a significant difference between (a) levels of principal tenure and levels…

Despite questions about validity and reliability, the use of value-added estimation methods has moved beyond academic research into state accountability systems for teachers, schools, and teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Prior studies of value-added measurement for TPPs test the validity of researcher-designed models and find that measuring…

Typically, achievement gaps between groups of students are measured as either differences in average scores or differences in proficiency rates. But, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have long recognized that these approaches don't tell the whole story. Average scores, for example, are good at summarizing trends but can mask real…

Student achievement to reward or sanction schools. These unadjusted accountability indicators do not account for differences in student or school characteristics that contribute to variations in assessment results. Since the "Coleman Report" (1966), a guiding principle in accountability design has been that educational outcomes data…

Demands for accountability have seen the implementation of large scale testing programs in Australia and internationally. There is, however, a growing body of evidence to show that externally imposed testing programs do not have a sustained impact on student achievement. It has been argued that teacher assessment is more effective in raising…

This mixed methods descriptive and causal-comparative study investigates what instructional leadership behaviors effective California high school principals have and what their beliefs are in regards to pedagogy, related issues, and professional issues, either constructivist or instructivist in nature, in the environment of the current NCLB…

This study compared the impact of state accountability examinations on social studies teachers' instructional practices. Data were obtained from a survey instrument given to a representative sample of Mississippi teachers who teach the same content tested on their state's high-stakes high school graduation examination and a representative sample…

Performance based assessment refers to tasks that require students to construct responses or take actions to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Performance assessment tasks appear in a variety of formats, but they focus on higher order skills and are nonroutine, and sometimes loosely structured, in nature. A number of concerns have been…