In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education--that is, using various types of student data to inform decisions in schools and classrooms. In October 2008, the Council of the Great City Schools and American Institutes for Research (AIR) launched a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focused…

The increasing use of educational tests to establish the accountability, credibility, and viability of educational programs is paralleled with increasing criticism of the "accountability through testing" philosophy. To analyze the relevancy and appropriateness of tests for educational decision making at the school district level, three…

A survey of administrators, teachers, and parents in 15 Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I school districts indicated that evaluations are used locally to meet federal and state requirements, to inform parents and staff, and to confirm positive attitudes toward a program. Standardized achievement tests, the backbone of Title I evaluations,…

It is argued that achievement test means, based on group scores, or other district-wide summary scores do not provide valid measures for diagnosing curriculum weaknesses nor for initiating curriculum changes. Group scores are probably valid for some purposes, but should not be used as criterion variables for evaluating the effectiveness of…