This report describes an initiative undertaken from 2016-2017 by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution and Education International (EI) to develop tools to measure the breadth of learning opportunities to which children and youth are exposed in an education system. The Breadth of Learning Opportunities (BOLO)…

This article reveals three emerging areas of conflict in the use of educational assessment instruments in compulsory education in Switzerland and outlines an analytical approach for detecting and analysing these areas of conflict. The approach combines a conceptual perspective, an evaluation perspective and a teaching perspective to show the…

Two quantitative measures of school performance are currently used, the average points score (APS) at Key Stage 2 and value-added (VA), which measures the rate of academic improvement between Key Stage 1 and 2. These figures are used by parents and the Office for Standards in Education to make judgements and comparisons. However, simple…

Public school critics often point to rising expenditures and relatively flat test scores to justify their school reform agendas. The claims are flawed because their analyses fail to account for the difference in data types between dollars (ratio) and test scores (interval). A cost-benefit analysis using dollars as a common metric for both costs…

In this article, the author describes some efforts initiated about 2 decades ago to reform mathematics assessment. Many, if not most, of those ideas have gradually eroded not only from school practice but also from the knowledge base of current day thinking and research in mathematics assessment. In addition to exploring and explaining the policy,…

The Michigan Context and Performance Report Card measures school performance by adjusting standardized test scores to account for student background. Comparing schools using unadjusted test scores ignores the significant relationship between academic performance and student socioeconomic background--a dynamic outside a school's control. The…

The proper use of psychological tests requires that the measurement instruments have adequate psychometric properties, such as reliability and validity, and that the professionals who use the instruments have the necessary expertise. In this article, we present the first review of tests published in Spain, carried out with an assessment model…

Educational evaluation in too many states and school districts, if done at all across an institution, has been reduced to crunching test scores in only the subject areas and grade levels tested. While measuring student achievement in reliable and valid ways is an important part of the mission of education, it is not enough. What's also needed is a…

In this study, an attempt was made to develop a method of measurement and evaluation aimed at overcoming the difficulties encountered in the determination of the effectiveness of chemistry education based on the goals of chemistry education. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is a multi-criteria decision technique, is used in the present…

Federal education policy will soon undergo a major revision, with significant consequences for the state's own policy and practices. This report seeks to help federal and state policymakers consider this restructuring and one of its core questions: How should schools and school districts be held accountable for the academic progress of their…

Assessing a high school's effectiveness is not straightforward. Comparing a school's standardized test scores to those of other schools is one approach to measuring effectiveness, but a major objection to this method is that students' test scores tend to be related to students' "socioeconomic" status--family household income, for…

In "Beyond Test Scores: Leading Indicators for Education," Foley and colleagues (2008) define "leading indicators" as those that "provide early signals of progress toward academic achievement" (p. 1) and stress that educators "need leading indicators to help them see the direction their efforts are going in and to take corrective action as soon as…

Assessing educational outcomes is a matter of great importance for everyone in a society that relies primarily on public schools to shape the next generation of citizens. Given the vital nature of this task, it is imperative that the researchers who undertake it have an informed understanding of the measures used to evaluate educational outcomes.…

Based on a theoretical model of program development, this taxonomy of evaluation relates six evaluation objectives or purposes to nine methodological alternatives. Use of the taxonomy may increase the efficiency of evaluation, improve communication, and assist in the choice of a methodology that is appropriate to the evaluation purposes.…

This document introduces a study conducted by the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) to review, interpret, and disseminate findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments in citizenship and social studies. The study represents an investigation funded by the Education Commission of the States and coordinated by…