IMPACT is the District of Columbia Public Schools' (DCPS) system for assessing and rewarding the performance of teachers and other school-based staff. This system is called IMPACT because the adults serving in the DCPS have the ability to make a dramatic, positive impact on students' lives. The system is designed to help staff become more…

Approximately one-third of American freshmen at two-year and four-year colleges require remedial coursework and over 40 percent of employers rate new hires with a high school diploma as "deficient" in their overall preparation for entry-level jobs. Yet, over the past decade, as these students marched through America's public education…

South Carolina's School Incentive Reward Program Program (SIRP) based on year-to-year gains in reading and mathematics achievement, which seemed to have face validity, was evaluated, particularly its use of the relative gains of students in only the highest grade in the school as the basis for the awards. When this requirement was relaxed so that…

In large-scale assessments, such as state-wide testing programs, national sample-based assessments, and international comparative studies, there are many steps involved in the measurement and reporting of student achievement. There are always sources of inaccuracies in each of the steps. It is of interest to identify the source and magnitude of…

California has provided other states with an example of how not to assess student writing and has initiated a new direction in the statewide assessment of student writing achievement, a direction designed to influence writing instruction positively. Before 1987, the California Assessment Program (CAP) limited English skills assessment to multiple…