This book is designed to build and enhance educators' knowledge about decision-making processes, including the use of multiple sources of assessment and data to inform instruction, interventions, services, and supports for all students within a comprehensive system to conduct action research. This resource demystifies, describes, and connects the…

The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: the Collaborative (NTACT:C) Collaborative Assessment Guide for Transition Planning (CAG) is intended to help students, family members, educators, vocational rehabilitation counselors, human services and health agency staff, and other partners develop a coordinated assessment approach for…

With the recent reauthorization of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), unprecedented philanthropic investment in career pathways, and the urgent economic needs of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the career readiness field is at a critical moment in time. To meet this moment, states,…

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That's not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study…

This guide describes key steps for developing a well-thought-out plan for evaluating a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). The guide provides considerations for how to incorporate each step into an evaluation plan, as well as a series of worksheets that correspond to each step and can be used to facilitate the planning process. The guide,…

The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt value-added models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. Such models typically link students to their teachers in the spring semester when statewide tests are administered and estimate a teacher's performance based on his or her students' learning…

Measures of student growth offer a richer understanding of student performance than a moment-in-time test score alone, but measures of student growth are not created equal. In their accountability plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), some states are using a sophisticated analysis of multiple data points that evaluate the…

Part C IDEA regulations define "evaluation" as "the procedures used by qualified personnel to determine a child's initial and continuing eligibility..." and "assessment" as "ongoing procedures used by qualified personnel to identify the child's unique strengths and needs and the early intervention services…

The accountability movement in education has caused school administrators and teachers to think differently about how they report, interpret, and use student assessment data. For example, legislative measures such as No Child Left Behind require school officials to report how all students are progressing toward established standards typically…

This document provides an overview of the critical role of fiscal data in state Part C systems. This information is intended to help state Part C lead agency staff better understand strategic fiscal policy questions, the fiscal data elements needed to address those questions, and the benefits of using these data. Fiscal data provide powerful…

The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) sets a national vision and plan for learning enabled by technology through building on the work of leading education researchers; district, school, and higher education leaders; classroom teachers; developers; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations. The principles and examples provided in this…

In the spring of 2020, public schools across the United States were forced to close their campuses due to an emerging public health crisis caused by the detection of the first cases of the COVID-19 virus. Although schools closed their buildings, the delivery of educational services did not stop. This included the ongoing provision of services…

In 2002, the Monroe County, Georgia, school system was, according to its then-superintendent Scott Cowart, "underperforming." Test scores were low, and several schools faced interventions under the new No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). One decade later, the 4,000-student school district in central Georgia is one of the highest-performing…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

The literature base on using formative assessment for instructional and intervention decisions is formidable, but the history of the practice of formative assessment is spotty. Even with the pressures of high-stakes accountability, its definition is fuzzy, its adoption is inconsistent, and the prognosis for future use is questionable. A historical…