Early childhood assessments can provide important information to guide instruction and inform policy. Given the widespread and growing use of statewide kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs), in particular, it is important that policymakers understand how to choose and use assessments wisely. This brief summarizes research showing how authentic…

High-quality early childhood programs aim to foster children's learning through developmentally appropriate practices and environments. Early childhood assessments, when well designed and well implemented, can support developmentally appropriate early learning experiences by providing information to guide instruction and support whole child…

A critical issue in teacher preparation today is that some candidates meet the criteria for admission to teacher education programs yet they struggle or fail to develop the levels of knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions required to complete the program. This article offers three different case studies to examine the monitoring process developed…

In 2007, the Illinois General Assembly passed Public Act 0950694, "The College and Career Readiness Pilot Act", in an effort to reduce remediation within Illinois' community colleges. An important objective of this legislation was to better prepare students to be successful in transitioning from high school to college. According to the…

Few research studies have been conducted related to students identified as slow learners who are enrolled in general education classes. In this research study, the definition of a slow learner describes the student as one who has "not" been identified as a student with a learning disability. The purpose of this study was to…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

Now that all 50 states and the District of Columbia are building statewide longitudinal data systems, the next step is to ensure that the information in these systems is used to improve student learning. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has identified 10 actions that states can take to ensure that the right data are available and accessible and…

Presented is the Illinois Regional Resource Center's Manual for Diagnostic Teachers which is designed to provide a model for assessment, individualized educational planning, optimal placement, and short and long range follow-up of children (3-21 years old) with unexplained learning problems. Section 1 provides an introduction to the…

Described is the Program in Early Childhood Development (PECD), a school-community project initially funded under Title III to provide identification, diagnostic, and intervention services for 3-to 5-year-old children in Evanston, Illinois prior to kindergarten entry. Two major sections deal with screening procedures (in such areas as…

The case study method used to determine eligibility for referral to special education in Illinois is examined. Required case study components in Illinois include an interview with the child, consultation with the child's parents, social developmental study, assessment of the child's adaptive behavior, assessment of the child's cultural background,…

The strengths of item-response theory (IRT) are used to examine the degree of information individual test items provide, as well as to investigate how the individual item types contribute to the overall measurement accuracy of the Illinois Goal Assessment Program (IGAP) reading test. Using the graded-response model of Samejima (1969), the amount…

In fall 1983, a survey was conducted to determine the extent of basic skills assessment of incoming students conducted in Illinois public community colleges. Questionnaires were sent to 50 community colleges, requesting information on the skills assessed, the time of assessment, and the instruments used. Study findings, based on responses from 44…

This is a report on the research evaluation of an educational program for very young children initiated under the conviction that adult illiteracy might be prevented through intervention into the "cycle of poverty." The method of intervention was to provide a group of preschool children from public assistance families with a training…

A collection of monographs concerning learning disabilities is presented. Subjects include a high school learning disabilities program, English curriculum development, evaluation philosophy, a traditional program, teacher created learning exercises, reading disability, student discussion, and language development. Discussions also concern…

This paper describes the work of, and the problems associated with, the bi-lingual psychologists whom the Chicago public schools employ to serve children who speak little or no English, and the teachers and administrators of the schools in which these children are enrolled. As introduction, the paper briefly sketches the total psychological…