As states and communities invest in initiatives to improve the quality of early care and education, the measurement of quality is becoming more widespread and the importance of measuring quality well is gaining increasing attention. Within the broad context of interest in improving quality, this report seeks to differentiate among a number of…

The Department has developed a Race to the Top program review process that not only addresses the Department's responsibilities for fiscal and programmatic oversight, but is designed to identify areas to differentiate support based on individual State needs, as well as certain topics where States can leverage work with each other and with experts…

The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Massachusetts' Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Massachusetts' Year 1 accomplishments include: capacity building within its Department of Elementary and…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of North Carolina's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Delaware created new structures at the State level to support both State and LEA (local education…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Ohio's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Prior to the first year of its Race to the Top grant, Ohio revised some Ohio Department of Education (ODE) job…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of New York's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. New York significantly increased its capacity to provide support to its local educational agencies (LEAs). At…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Rhode Island's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. According to the State, in Year 1, Rhode Island greatly increased statewide capacity to begin…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Tennessee's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Tennessee received its Race to the Top grant in July 2010 as part of the first round of the competition.…

Critiques two central issues of measurement as applied to the evaluation of student progress in cooperative education: reliability and validity. Urges the synthesis of measurement and professional judgment in all phases of the evaluation process. (SK)

This paper examines those aspects of qualitative and quantitative research that might reasonably count towards effective educational research. The problem is addressed by examining their philosophical differences, their pursuit of objectivity, their approach to values, and the pursuit of reliability and validity. The possibility of rapproachment…

A discussion of increasing productivity in post secondary education involves the improvement of the assessment of educational outcome with respect to range of attributes measured and reliability and validity, and the improvement of the quality and number of measures used to assess educational outcome. (Author/AM)

Pratt's measure C on the class concentration of bibliometric distributions is calculated and interpreted for the laws of Zipf, Mandelbrot, and Lotka and geometric distribution, and comparisons are made of the results. An explicit mathematical formula which unifies disparate theories is derived and tested. (Author/CLB)

Examined, through analysis of questions about conflict between separated parents (N=327), three hypotheses about the relationship among frequency and intensity response questions. Found associations among related intensity items possibly stronger than those among related frequency items; associated intensity items and associated frequency items…

In a discussion of accountability and performance contracting, the author believes that within a couple of years, performance contracting in its present form will be seen as a rather primitive, simplistic approach to the practice of accountability, but the notion of accountability will continue to be a powerful influence on the educational scene.…

School counselors need to understand survey methodology even if they do not use it as research practitioners. Counselors can be better consumers of survey research by noting response rates, sampling techniques, reliability and validity in research articles. (JAC)