The Wabash National Study was created by the authors of this article in the early 2000s as a response to increasing pressure for institutions to get serious about assessment. The Wabash National Study was a multimillion dollar, 40-plus-institution, longitudinal research and assessment project that measured liberal learning outcomes and the good…

Under both No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act, school leaders have been mandated to employ data-driven decision-making (DDDM) to diagnose student needs, implement targeted supports, and design school improvements. However, district administrators tasked with developing principals' DDDM capacity face a tough road. The authors…

The recommendations in this brief create a framework for using data effectively to make instructional decisions. The availability of student-level data for educators has pushed forward the movement to strengthen the role of data to guide instruction and improve student learning. While improvements in technology and assessments, as well as recent…

In this exploratory study, the authors examine Greek special education teachers' individual and collaborative teaching experiences in the context of their literacy instruction. The Five Foci Framework, situated in Vygotskian theory, is utilized in the study's design to examine special education teachers' individual and collaborative experiences…

Head Start has long focused on assessing and improving program quality to ensure that the children served receive the best possible preparation for school and life. Most research has been focused inside the classroom--the classroom environment, teacher qualifications, and teacher interactions. Of course, the classroom is important because that is…

On April 8, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) published in the Federal Register new proposed amendments to regulations implementing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The notice invites public comments on the proposed regulations, which are due no later than May 23, 2011. The proposed regulations are designed to…

In the process of planning for the needs of all students, local school officials could use a linear planning guide. Such a procedure calls for moving through several phases: preparation for planning, analysis of the situation, development of alternatives, selection of a plan, implementation of the plan, and evaluation of the plan and of the…

In this position paper, reservations are presented regarding the potential of knowledge management (KM) as it is currently applied to the learning and teaching activity of schools. We contend that effective KM is contingent upon the explication of a deep and shared understanding of the learning and teaching process. We argue that the most…

Successful implementation of assessment requires effective administrative leadership to get started, convert data to information, and use the information in making improvements. Assessment may pay its greatest long-term dividends as an organizational device for directing scarce reserves of institutional attention to teaching and learning. (MLW)

A set of 13 key characteristics is presented as a framework for educational evaluation studies: (1) program's stage of development when evaluator is appointed; (2) program's openness to revision; (3) program uniformity from site to site; (4) specificity of program objectives; (5) evaluator's independence; (6) evaluator's orientation to value…

This guide presents detailed information concerning the purposes and process of program evaluation, the role of the evaluator, and the development of an evaluation plan or design. Instruction is provided in selecting or developing assessment instruments, collecting and analyzing data, reporting evaluation results and applying the findings. The…

Results of a study conducted for the Ministry of Education (Ontario) and designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Ontario School Record System (OSR) as revised in 1973 are reported in this paper. In order to evaluate the OSR's effectiveness, the study team examined educators', parents and students' perceived needs for student information,…

The use of target setting in conjunction with good information systems in colleges and work-based learning (WBL) providers can lead to improved service provisions across the sector in the United Kingdom. Target setting must be carried out in a systematic way in which providers must develop target- setting processes with a focus on learner success;…

The paper describes how information regarding future trends is collected and made available to educational policy makers. Focusing on educational implications of social and population trends, the paper is based on data derived from use of trend forecasting by educational policy makers in Florida and other southeastern states. The document is…

"Community Content-Based Instruction" grew out of several development initiatives and field needs. It began to take shape in a Gender and Public Health Education for Teachers Workshop and an In-Service Education Workshop for Volunteers and their counterparts, in the spring of 1996 in Eritrea. Since that time, the concept has been further…