The town motto, "people of pride and purpose," is evident throughout Panhandle, Texas. In a town of 2,000, one-third of the population is school-age children, and all attend Panhandle elementary (pre-K-5), junior high (6-8), or high school. The Panhandle Panthers have a lot of school pride, which stems in large part from the Panhandle…

What does it mean to hold schools accountable? How do we measure school performance? Why do we care? We convened focus groups of K-12 stakeholders to wrestle with these tough questions and help us better understand the current accountability landscape--where we've been as well as where we're headed. We've compiled what those focus group…

A number of organizational, personal and methodological characteristics have been identified through the literature which inhibit or can be used to facilitate the use of evaluation and testing information. Inhibitors of information usage include organizational characteristics such as loosely coupled and decentralized systems, personal…

This consumer's guide provides descriptive information about currently available surveys of student alcohol and other drug (AOD) use. Its purposes are to inform schools and communities about the instruments available to survey student AOD use, and to delineate the issues faced by educators while selecting or developing a survey instrument to…