Recent legislative efforts have been aimed at increasing the accountability of schools to meet the educational needs and improve outcomes for students. States and districts across the nation have responded differently. One emerging pattern has been the rise in alternative schools which address the educational needs of students unsuccessful in…

The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) marked the beginning of a new development cycle for accountability systems. State leaders once again have an opportunity to redesign their accountability systems based on the provisions included in ESSA and to ensure that systems improve outcomes for all students. The correct identification of…

In spring 2014, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) announced that it was beginning to implement a new accountability framework for special education. This framework, known as Results Driven Accountability (RDA), is intended to shift from a compliance to an outcomes focus to improve educational…

This report illustrates how four high-performing systems--British Columbia (Canada), Hong Kong, Shanghai (China) and Singapore--developed their teacher professional learning. The report and accompanying materials are designed as a resource for teachers, school leaders and policymakers wanting to improve teacher professional learning in their…

As of January 1, 2013, 34 states and the District of Columbia have been granted waivers from certain provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Part of each successful flexibility application was a state accountability system that could identify priority schools (the lowest performing 5% of Title 1 schools) and focus schools…

From the 1980s to the present, educational accountability in the United States has grown dramatically. Such accountability in U.S. school districts, although driven primarily by external demands, has internal manifestations as well. The chapter traces the historical development of internal evaluation in American school districts, then highlights…

Geary Rummler developed a powerful methodology to design organizations that sustainably deliver desired performance. And he was always interested in further developing his ideas. This article uses a specific project to illustrate how Rummler's work can be used to create a complete organization and explores where future methodological developments…

This report by the Council of the Great City Schools to the Rochester City School District presents the organization's findings and recommendations for improving the special education program in the school system, placing special emphasis on the organizational structure of the program, accountability, and how the instructional program generally…

This document is a compilation of the proceedings of the 23rd Annual State California Conference on Educational Research. The theme of the proceedings centered around accountability and curriculum. Each participant submitted his remarks on specially designed paper; each page was photographed and prepared without editing. The three general sessions…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) requires states and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to define and determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting the goal of 100 percent academic proficiency. To address tribes' needs for cultural preservation, NCLBA allows tribal groups to…

This is one of a series of information packets developed as part of Project ACCESS to aid Colorado teachers, educational administrators, and school board members in implementing local educational improvement plans as mandated by Colorado's Educational Accountability Act of 1971. This particular information packet provides a framework for…

Directed to Canadian directors of centers for adult education, this document describes what constitutes quality in a center for adult education and tells how to develop a high quality center. The document consists of three chapters and two appendices. Chapter 1 explains the five dimensions that determine the quality of a center and the 5 factors…

The danger of using student performance as a basis for budgeting and program accountability is that it promises accountability through simple measurement of complex realities, with qualitative measures overwhelming less precise qualitative measures. (MSE)

The ongoing planning of school improvement in the Chicago Public Schools is examined in this paper. The Chicago School Reform Act required that principals consult with their local school councils (LSCs), staff, parents, and community members to develop a three-year school improvement plan (SIP). Data were derived from two studies: the first…

The goals of this project are to assist schools in developing community ranked educational goals, to assess needs (i.e., to determine how well community ranked educational goals are being met), and to determine who among a number of groups are responsible for carrying out the goals as viewed from the local schools level. The concept of shared…