The purpose of this study was to conduct a program evaluation case study on the impact of standards-based grading in a North Carolina school district. The implementation procedures and end products of grading reform were assessed using the CIPP model. Data from teacher questionnaires, principal implementation checklists, interviews, and…

With social-emotional learning's (SEL) significant impact on academic, emotional, behavioral, social, and lifelong success, it is necessary to ensure its continued adoption, implementation, and effectiveness within schools. While SEL is at its highest levels of awareness and implementation, it still faces significant barriers to effectiveness.…

This study explored principals' epistemic beliefs towards learning theory and student agency as essential criteria for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Following the understanding of these beliefs the principals went through an iterative process to develop a walkthrough matrix to evaluate the criteria deemed essential for immersive…

How can assessment and evaluation policies work together more effectively to improve student outcomes in primary and secondary schools? The country reports in this series provide, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing evaluation and assessment policy to identify improvements that can be made to enhance…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to introduce the concept of a checklist, focusing on the detailed analysis of requirements of the AACSB International--the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards related to the learning and teaching area--for evaluation of implementation readiness in a business school setting.…

Assessment expectations are communicated to students in various ways and at different points in the semester. The provision of written information in learning guides given to students at the start of semester articulates what they are to do and how well they are to perform in assessment tasks. This paper examines how assessment expectations at an…

Effective teaching has long been an issue of national concern, but in recent years focus on the effectiveness of programs to produce high-quality teachers has sharpened. Long-standing achievement gaps persist despite large-scale legislative changes at the federal and state levels, and American students continue to show poorer performance on…

America's public schools are required to provide equal access to an education for all students. This study, in the form of an executive position paper, focused on how a large suburban school district having a small but diverse English language population should provide that equal access in order to address the academic needs of its current…

In this article we present results from a study investigating the impact of three state exit exam systems on teaching and learning in college-preparatory schools. The study compares one state with a traditionally more centralized exam regime, one state that is more de-centralized and one state that has recently switched to more centralized…

The materials in this toolkit contain information about the five core components of a service-learning project: investigation, planning and preparation, action, reflection, and demonstration/celebration. Also included are the standards and indicators of K-12 service-learning. The information is organized into an overview and five chapters, each…

This article summarizes the use of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and subsequent action planning as a tool of self-assessment to meet CAS (Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education) requirements for systematic assessment. The use of the evaluation results to devise improvements to increase the…

To ensure the best possible outcomes for young children with and without disabilities, early childhood educators must enter the classroom ready to conduct all types of early childhood assessment--including determining if children need additional services, planning and monitoring instruction, and determining program effectiveness. They'll get the…

In the summer of 2011, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to provide a four-day training for all evaluators across the state. NIET trained more than 5,000 evaluators intensively in the state model (districts using alternative instruments delivered their own training).…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…

The federal government has had a long-standing commitment to ensuring access of English Learner (EL) students to a meaningful education. As early as 1968, the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA") contained provisions for supporting the education of EL students and in its 1974 landmark decision, "Lau v.…