This review critiques the highly-praised and influential 2001 study, "Getting Tough? The Impact of High School Graduation Exams," which concluded that "minimum competency," or high school "graduation exams," had no effect on student achievement. The review compares the test classifications of "Getting…

This article first makes a case for the need to establish evaluation reporting standards, support for which is rooted in the growing demand for professionalization, in the growing meta evaluation literature, and in growing efforts to develop reporting standards for inquiry efforts. Then, a case is made for a particular set of such standards…

This essay is a critique of medical/clinical ethics from the personal perspective of a medical historian in an academic health science centre who has interacted with ethicists. It calls for greater transparency and accountability of ethicists involved in "bedside consulting"; it questions the wisdom of the four principles of biomedical…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) builds upon recent state efforts to reinvigorate the commitment of education to prepare students, not just for college and career, but also for citizenship and full participation in democratic life. This report outlines how ESSA strengthens opportunities for states to expand and support civic learning and…

In this webinar, Dr. Edward Roeber, Assessment Director for the Michigan Assessment Consortium, addressed what educators need to know about formative, summative, and interim assessments and how each functions in a coherent assessment system. This Q&A addressed the questions participants had for Dr. Roeber following the webinar. The webinar…

Over the last eight years, the University of Virginia Partnership for Leaders in Education (UVA/PLE) has partnered with over 50 districts and state education agencies across the country to embark on high-level change at the state, district, and school levels through the use of leader competencies. This guide calls upon practice-based experience,…

The author of this article questions what has been gained from Berrett's exploration of the connections between competency development and individual required courses. She concludes from this analysis that students' competency development is a responsibility that cuts across many courses and many levels of expected student proficiency. To put it…

In 23 states, members of the high school class of 2008 were required to pass a state high school exit examination (HSEE) to earn regular high school diplomas. Proponents of these policies claim that they improve student academic achievement, although critics argue that they reduce the quality of instruction without raising academic achievement.…

Accountability and dissemination of its work are important elements of Cedefop's policy to provide assurance to stakeholders for resources used and results achieved. For a centre of expertise and policy advice like Cedefop, the impact of which is hard to gauge for the common European citizen, legitimacy of public expenditure is important, and is…

Today's environment requires community college leaders to put student success and equity at the top of their leadership agendas. Thus, higher education institutions have realized a need to change the philosophies and programs that underpin the training of community college leaders. Other schools of education are adapting to give college leaders…

Increasingly frequent journalistic accounts report that schools are responding to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) by engaging in what has come to be known as "educational triage." Although these accounts rely almost entirely on anecdotal evidence, the prospect is of real concern. The NCLB accountability system divides schools into those in…

Assessments were an important tool recommended by "A Nation at Risk;" however, a generation after that report, many of the problems with student assessment still remain. This article offers brief reflections on three somewhat overlapping but enduring issues in educational assessment: validity, construct underrepresentation in outcome measures in…

Differentiating the curriculum has been a challenging task for classroom teachers, but it has become even more challenging after the No Child Left Behind Act, because the emphasis in programming and funding in schools has shifted from realizing the individual potential of every student to raising all students to the same level of minimum…

Expresses the serious problems inherent in minimum competency testing, particularly as it is used in assessing student writing ability. (RL)

In 1972, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia instituted the Regents' Testing Program (RTP) to provide systemwide information on the status of student competence in reading and writing and to provide a uniform means of identifying those students who fail to attain minimum levels of competence in these areas. Since 1972, some…