Federal legislation in the United States granted states freedom to alter formerly test-based teacher evaluation systems and situate family engagement as a key component in school improvement efforts. Concurrently, theorizing on family engagement has moved away from deficit characterizations and school-based involvement to an asset-based approach…

Purpose: The primary purpose of this policy analysis is to examine how states changed their principal performance evaluation systems since the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. In particular, we focus on whether states have capitalized on the flexible policy landscape to make space for meaningful family and community engagement (FCE)…

Education policies serve as potent tools for advancing equitable outcomes and systematically addressing inequities in schools and districts. But education policies often mirror inequities and bias-based beliefs within the K-12 education system. Increasing educational equity is key to overcoming the status quo and improving educational outcomes for…

School improvement plans (SIPs) have become a central feature of schooling. Educational leaders experience tension between balancing compliance with accountability demands and continuous improvement, and neither of these lenses is centered in the social justice necessary for closing opportunity gaps. We propose a new rubric for assessing the…

Citizen-led assessments were developed in the mid-2000s to gather evidence on children's learning outcomes following the rapid increase in primary student enrolment in the developing world. Integral to their philosophy is social accountability and community engagement. While most large-scale assessments focus on test-based accountability to…

The Judicial Evaluation Method (JEM) is useful for aiding decision-making bodies to formulate policies. Broad public participation in complex issues is provided by JEM. (The conceptualization, policy formulation stages, and participant roles are identified; and the model is applied in two case studies). (MH)

For too long New York City's high schools have not prepared even a majority of students for graduation. There is no single solution to the problems confronting the city's schools, but the city needs to do better--and it can. Over the past several years, New York City has undertaken a far-reaching process of education reform. This report describes…

The author responds to alarm over declining national test scores by outlining possible improvements for educational practice and policy. (LH)

Despite attention to cultural considerations in teacher education, curriculum development, and educational policy making and analysis, evaluation remains the last bastion of ethnocentrism in educational evaluation. Evaluators should accept the challenge of finding new ways to explore educational successes within various cultural contexts. More…

A democratic model of educational evaluation and some policy recommendations to develop culturally appropriate evaluation are presented. The traditional hard science paradigm in research must be replaced with evaluation designed to feed back to communities of varying cultural backgrounds. The most fundamental assumption of the new model is…

This double issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" focuses on one of the central components of complementary learning: family involvement. As outlined in the Theory & Practice article, investments in family involvement are important across ages and settings and through the co-constructed efforts and shared responsibilities of many…

This paper presents the reports of the National Task Forces on Urban, Rural, Migrant, Native American and Bilingual/Bicultural Education. The Task Forces were asked to pinpoint strategies for instructional and programmatic improvement in these areas. The focus of inquiry was on reading and mathematics instruction. Attention was also paid to…

Financial, educational, and political accountability issues involved in the Disadvantaged Schools Program, initiated by the Schools Commission to improve the learning outcomes of children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia, are the focus of this paper. Consideration is given to the views of the Commission in its published…