The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December 2015, is the latest reauthorization of one of the most influential pieces of federal education legislation, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The law had not been reauthorized since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed, and ESSA is the result of…

This book compiles several essays about effective evaluation of teaching. Contents of this publication include: (1) Conducting Research on Student Evaluations of Teaching (William E. Addison and Jeffrey R. Stowell); (2) Choosing an Instrument for Student Evaluation of Instruction (Jared W. Keeley); (3) Formative Teaching Evaluations: Is Student…

This guide is intended to lead candidates through the National Board Certification process and help them address some of the challenges that past candidates have identified. This guide is divided into seven sections: (1) Am I Ready? contains information on those things candidates need to know and do before they begin putting together their…

The AFT and the NEA have produced this candidate guide to help our members navigate the National Board Certification process. The guide provides practical advice and suggestions from National Board Certified Teachers, candidates, and candidate support providers. The guide complements the candidate materials provided by the National Board and…

This handbook is designed as a quick reference for first-year teachers who find themselves in an assessment driven environment with little experience to help make sense of the language, underlying philosophy, or organizational structure of the assessment system. The handbook begins with advice on developing and evaluating effective learning…

Within a conceptual and research framework about the usefulness of portfolios, this book suggests methods to organize the process, and provides tools that will be used not only during preparation programs but also for professional and academic advancement. Key features include: (1) Provides a conceptual framework for portfolio development: Readers…

This book shows educators how to put technology to use in their classrooms as a tool for student reflection and assessment, demonstrating how teachers can help students create electronic portfolios that illustrate their command of subject matter. The book is arranged in a progression by plugging in portfolio example projects in each chapter.…

This book offers administrators a reliable guide to creating a document that evidences performance. The book tells what the administrative portfolio is and how it can be created and used. Part 1 contains 12 chapters on creating and using the administrative portfolio: (1) "Changing Roles and Expectations of Academic Administrators"; (2) "The…

This guide contains practical steps for integrating portfolios into any K-12 classroom and tips for effective classroom management of portfolios. It also contains actual examples of portfolios in action in a variety of subject areas. The chapters are: (1) "Starting Out: Designing Your Portfolio" (James Barton and Angelo Collins); (2) "Preparing…

This document is a scoring guide that presents the Teacher-candidates' Overall Program Portfolio Scoring: Systematic, Comprehensive and Hierarchical Evaluative Measures of Excellence (TOPPS SCHEME) approach to scoring teacher candidates' program portfolios. The guide facilitates systematic, comprehensive, and hierarchical means of measuring and…

This book offers principals hands-on, practical advice on how to develop and use the principal portfolio to improve their performance and assist in transforming their schools. Chapter 1 describes the concept of the principal portfolio and why it is needed. Chapter 2 provides an overview of what should be included in the principal portfolio.…

Describes the goals of and participant responses to a six-step Early Childhood Portfolio Assessment Preparation (ECPAP) Model that was implemented in two early childhood education programs to facilitate the use of portfolio student evaluation. Intended as a guide to supervisors who are training teachers in portfolio assessment, as well as early…

Focuses on the kind of assessment that takes place within a classroom context, and therefore looks at assessing, grading, or testing writing, since when educators talk about classroom assessment they talk of grades and tests, at times using all three terms interchangeably. Hopes to draw educators into new conversations about assessment and the…

Presents three fictional scenarios each based on very different kinds of facts: the very clear data of test scores, the ambiguous data of behaviors, and the concrete but infinitely interpretable data of portfolios. Notes that the data represented by the portfolio is much more appropriate to assessing language competencies than is data represented…

This compilation of articles from "The Reading Teacher" contrasts old and new approaches to reading assessment and offers methods that teachers can use in the classroom to build better readers. The articles suggest that in order to effectively assess young readers, one must integrate assessment with instruction, which requires new forms of…