While Massachusetts has received accolades for its high scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) and Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, absolute results from standardized tests tend to correlate strongly with family income and parental education. The Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education…

The goal of this document is to provide relevant information to the education community as it considers alternatives to free- and reduced-price meal (FRP) eligibility data as a proxy for individual student and family socioeconomic status (SES). It provides "encyclopedia-type" entries for eight different alternative SES measures and, as…

The Washington State Board of Education (SBE) and the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) submitted this 6th biennial joint report to the Governor, Legislative Education Committees, and Superintendent of Public Instruction. The report outlines the collaborative work of the Boards, highlights accomplishments, and provides goals and…

All of the states in this study have recently been involved in school accountability system reform. Since 2011, the states have taken advantage of a federal program to give them flexibility around certain requirements of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary…

The "Race to the Top" competitive grant program initiated a wave of teacher evaluation reform, which scholars and policymakers have long identified as critical to improving teacher quality and student performance. State boards of education (SBEs) and state education agencies (SEAs) took different approaches to these reforms, and as a…

Lists 10 conditions essential to a school's readiness to explore alternative assessment methods, including desire for better assessment information, insufficiency of current assessment method, staff and parent openness to innovation, conceptual clarity, assessment "literacy," clarity about desired student outcomes, unsuitability of present…

Describes project that provided technical assistance to elementary and secondary teachers at six sites while collecting data on problems encountered and educators' evolving concepts of alternative assessment. Key difficulties in understanding were teachers' focus on classroom activities rather than student goals, uncertainty about specifying…

To support educational reforms, new assessments must stress the performance of complex, holistic tasks, not snippets of performance in segments, elements, or chunks of complex tasks. Sidebars present helpful guidelines for developing staff and creating an assessment. Assessments can assume numerous shapes, including budgeting activities,…

This study presents a longitudinal and intertextual analysis of educational policymaking activity in California over a 10-year period to identify factors that supported local policy implementation in a shifting political climate. Analysis reveals the essential nature of coherence, capacity building, and changed practices in building an alternative…

A collaborative study group on teacher development of alternative assessments in mathematics and the sciences was cosponsored in the 1992-93 school year by the Virginia Educational Association and the Appalachia Educational Laboratory. Twenty-two teachers from 11 schools throughout Virginia worked with staff from the sponsoring organizations and…

These steps are described for implementation: inform stakeholders of the importance of alternate assessments, educate all students to high standards, identify partners to support participants, use a practical process to decide eligibility, develop standards-based Individualized Education Programs, use a variety of assessment strategies, use scores…

The third year of the contract, 1993-94, was one of culminating activities for the Region F Technical Assistance Center (TAC), as well as a year for preparation for reauthorization. The TAC continued to provide assistance that focused on improving curriculum and instruction across all aspects of Chapter 1. A significant change was the increase in…

To understand how assessment, particularly alternative assessment, and practice interactions may differ among schools with different implementation contexts and different school cultures, this project is studying over time a set of schools representing different state and local policy contexts and including different student populations. Research…

In April 1991, members of the Kentucky Educational Research Association (KERA), held a conference to discuss performance assessment and its use in Kentucky schools. The following papers from the conference are included: (1) "Our Conference and the Performance Assessment Committee" (S. Kifer); (2) "Performance Assessment: A National…

This introductory packet provides information on cultural concerns that should be considered in addressing barriers to student learning. Topics discussed include: (1) what is meant by ethnicity; (2) the importance of considering culture; (3) characteristics of culturally competent programs; (4) reasons school staff should be concerned about…