The Race to the Top Assessment program was authorized as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). In September 2010, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) awarded competitive, four-year grants to two consortia of states, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter…

A major tenet of both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act is the identification and use of evidence-based practices, or those instructional techniques shown by research as most likely to improve student outcomes meaningfully. However, much confusion exists regarding the meaning and potential…

Using evidence-based practices, or those instructional techniques shown by research to improve student outcomes meaningfully, increases the performance of students with disabilities and should therefore be a priority for special educators. But how does a practice come to be considered evidence based? The unique characteristics of group…

In response to recent trends and legislation, the concept of implementing evidence-based practices has become a critical component of contemporary schooling. It is important that teachers and families of students with disabilities understand the role that qualitative research plays in determining whether a practice is in fact evidence based.…

Research in the field of special education often incorporates single-subject designs to investigate the effectiveness of educational practices for students with disabilities. As such, it is important that educators and educational professionals understand the characteristics of single-subject research methodologies and how those characteristics…

During 1973-75, the Rand Corporation conducted a study of federally funded change agent programs to determine the factors for successful change in the schools at the local, state, and federal levels. The programs included the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Title III, Innovation Projects; ESEA Title VII, Bilingual Projects;…

Looks at past evaluation of compensatory education, suggests new approaches to evaluation, and makes recommendations about program implementation. (IRT)

The Rand change agent study was designed to determine the factors for successful implementation and continuation of selected federal programs--the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title III, Innovation Projects; ESEA Title VII, Bilingual Projects; Vocational Education Part D, Exemplary Programs; and the Right-to-Read program. This report…

To inform reauthorizations of Title I, the federal government's largest program for elementary and secondary education, the Congress has required the Department of Education to conduct national assessments of Title I. Two of these studies have gathered Title I data over several years: the Prospects study, completed in 1997; and the ongoing…

This final volume in a series of seven describes the methodologies used in a study of four federal programs in 57 school districts across the country. In order to accomplish the study's objectives, two types of substudies were implemented--a federal programs survey and the individual site studies. The federal programs survey data were collected…

This book examines in detail the experiment in educational performance contracting conducted by the United States Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) during the 1970-71 school year. Major objectives of the OEO project were to find out whether a private educational firm could teach educationally disadvantaged children to read and write better than…

This chapter gives an overview of the design and statistical and psychometric analysis methods of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The evolution of the NAEP continues to provide challenges to statisticians and psychometricians, as demonstrated in the expansion of the NAEP to the assessment of individual states. (SLD)

To fulfill its mandate and its potential the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) must be a multi-content annual assessment of priority learning areas. This report describes a procedure under which measures of attainment can be charted over time in a broad range of skill domains, on item-invariant item response theory scales, using…

The five essays that compose this report criticize, from federal, state, and local perspectives, current methods of evaluating government-sponsored education programs. A major recurring theme is that experimental design methods, most commonly used by the Department of Education, do not provide adequate information for policy-makers' needs. The…

The papers comprising these proceedings discuss the nature and purpose of the Independent Educational Accomplishment Audit (IEAA), a concept born in the late 1960's to establish accountability for mandatory technical assistance programs funded by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: (1) origins and rationale of the Independent Educational…