Teacher education program evaluation is one of the most recent research areas under development. One of the main reasons for the interest in this issue is the need for accountability of these teacher preparation programs in order to show evidence of high-quality teacher preparation (Wilson, 2014). In fact, according to Karimnia and Kay (2015) and…

Teacher education faculty are often expected to engage in accreditation work. Our purpose was to document the collective driving mechanisms of junior faculty who volunteered to redesign key accreditation assessments. Specifically, we explored the values and expectations for success that led junior faculty to engage in and persist through key…

Systemic efforts to strengthen teacher preparation in Louisiana led to the first statewide value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Subsequently, a number of states have adopted VAA of TPPs. The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana's VAA of TPPs. The discussion is organized…

An evaluation system that is designed to support and improve teacher practice--rather than simply to assess and manage teacher performance--would have as its foundation effective and reliable processes to observe classroom practice and give teachers useful feedback. Such an improvement-focused evaluation system should be aligned with and…

Higher education institutions worldwide invest significant resources in their quality assurance systems. Little empirical evidence exists that demonstrates the effectiveness (or otherwise) of these systems. Methodological approaches for determining effectiveness are also underdeveloped. Self-study-with-peer-review is a widely used model for…

No Child left Behind, The ESEA Flexibility Program, and the Race to the Top contest have spurred a multitude of School Improvement programs, businesses, initiatives and more. The current emphasis on standardized testing, data gathering and analysis, and measuring effective schooling has caused many education agencies, state and local, to seek…

Accreditation in higher education institutions continues to be regarded as the seal of collegiate quality even while questions have been raised about its effectiveness and what the process accepts as evidence of improved student learning. As a result, many regional accrediting agencies are requiring higher education institutions to implement…

As public and private funders have focused on evaluating the effectiveness of workforce development programs, a myriad of data collection systems and reporting processes have taken shape. Navigating these systems takes significant time and energy and often saps frontline providers' capacity to use data internally for program improvement.…

The deluge of early child development research over the past 20 years has sparked an unprecedented public interest in the first years of children's lives. Research indicates that quality early education promotes the overall development of a healthy child. The Desired Results System, a standards-based accountability initiative of the California…

The IDEIA 2004 presents opportunities for change in our methods for improving the process of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) identification. While common approaches to improvement often focus on the assessment tools alone, consideration of stakeholder values and resource constraints are equally important to develop effective solutions that…

One of the US Department of Education's key priorities is turning around the nation's persistently low-achieving schools, yet exactly how to identify low-performing schools is a task left to state policy makers, and a myriad of definitions have been utilized. In addition, exactly how to recognize when a school begins to turn around is not well…

"Building Institutional Capacity for Data-Informed Decision Making" is the third installment of the Cutting Edge series, which aims to help colleges engage faculty, scale successful interventions, and create a strong culture of evidence through use of data to strengthen their institutional change and student success efforts. Though the…