This qualitative, phenomenological case study was to determine the impact the state accountability system has on school improvement practices for schools that have been designated under the statewide system of support. Nine district and school level leaders were interviewed from one suburban school district designated as…

This resource was prepared in response to a request for information about what States with Race to the Top -- Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grants are doing to support coaching as a professional development strategy. This information will be helpful to other States as they explore ways to support early childhood educators in improving their…

With increasingly diverse student populations, educational equity is a bigger challenge than ever for public schools across the United States. While federal government, states, and school districts work to identify and address the root causes of equity gaps, efforts are often hampered by a limited body of research-based strategies and approaches…

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, large-scale assessments have come to play a central role in federal and state education accountability systems. Teachers and parents have expressed a number of concerns about their state testing programs, such as too much time devoted to testing and the high-stakes use of testing for teacher evaluation.…

Prompted by the need for leaders able to turn around chronically low-performing schools, states, universities, education groups, and school districts in the US have initiated a variety of principal development programs. Some programs focus on enhancing the skills of experienced administrators, while others target talented teachers and even…

The field of literacy education has long been concerned with the question of how to help classroom teachers improve their practices so that students will improve as readers. Although there is consensus on what characterizes effective professional development, the reading research on which this consensus is based most often is small scale and…

The California Master Plan for Higher Education sets a policy objective of equity through access to higher education. The California State University system is California's primary institution for providing the social mobility that accompanies a four-year college degree. The purpose of this study is to examine the education lifecycle outcomes for…

This Critical Issue Bibliography (CRIB) sheet focuses on performance indicators in higher education. Performance indicators are concrete pieces of information about a condition or result of public action that is regularly produced, publicly reported, and systematically used for planning, monitoring, or resource allocation. The resources in this…

Performance based assessment refers to tasks that require students to construct responses or take actions to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Performance assessment tasks appear in a variety of formats, but they focus on higher order skills and are nonroutine, and sometimes loosely structured, in nature. A number of concerns have been…

Teachers' reactions to the administration and scoring of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests (MSPAP) were studied, focusing on their direct and indirect exposure to tasks and evaluative criteria through the experience of scoring the MSPAP. Since its inception in 1991, the MSPAP has been scored in-state by certified teachers…

This article reports on a study of a new performance-based test mandate in the state of Arizona. The measurement-driven reform provided an opportunity to examine the interplay of policy and practice, specifically the use of testing to effect educational change. Attempts to reform schools through mandating assessments are categorized as behaviorist…

The extent to which classroom instruction and assessment activities in mathematics are aligned to the State of Maryland's Learning Objectives and the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) was studied by examining the underlying structure of the mathematics teacher questionnaire developed and administered to teachers in the 1996-97…

Title I of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994 provides funds for schools with large concentrations of children from low-income families. A fundamental requirement is that children served by Title I funds must be educated according to the same academic standards as all other students. This handbook focuses on methods for developing…

The results of an evaluation of Vermont's statewide assessment initiative are presented, with information about the implementation of the program, its effects on educational practice, the analytic challenge presented by the portfolio scoring process, the reliability and validity of portfolio scores, and the tensions between assessment and…

A comprehensive overview of the current state of student assessment and a glimpse of the extent of student assessment in New York State (NYS), throughout the nation, and in foreign countries are provided. Background on existing testing programs in NYS and the assessment components of "A New Compact for Learning," a set of proposals from…