This report, intended to be issued annually, represents the University of Wisconsin (UW) System's effort to provide the citizens of Wisconsin with broad-based accountability of its largest public higher education system. The report focuses on two distinct approaches to the measurement of university performance. First, it presents the UW System's…

Explains that drug education in schools has failed to work the way schoolmen expected, and may have cause more harm than good. Contends that just knowing about overdoses and chromosome damage hasn't convinced students to steer clear of drugs. Describes Boulder Valley Public Schools program for integrating drug information into broader mental…

By ascertaining student achievement levels both at admission and at the time the student leaves a school, and by comparing these two scores, a school effectiveness index can be formulated. (RA)

Focusing on issues related to the training of industrial workers in Brazil, this article reports the findings of a study which evaluated the effectiveness of vocational training offered by the National Industrial Apprenticeship Service. (LRA)

A step-by-step method can determine whether training programs match the training needs as expressed by rated objectives. Trainers calculate the time devoted to each objective while the program users rate the importance of each objective. The match between importance and time is a measure of program efficiency. (LRA)

Intervention programs claiming to benefit young handicapped children are increasingly being required to provide evidence of their effectiveness. An intervention efficiency index (IEI) is proposed as a method of measuring child progress and program impact by relating changes in children's developmental capabilities to time spent in a program.…

Counselors developing evidence on the potency of affective education programs find that student autobiographies are a rich source of data. This article describes a system for counting words that relates to self, home, and school and how the frequency counts within categories discriminate among students by gender and academic classification.…

This special report looks at what is wrong with traditional accounting for training and offers a new model--the consensus accounting model--to help measure the costs and benefits of training. (60 references) (Author)

In 1995, the Virginia Board of Education adopted sweeping new Standards of Learning (SOL) outlining minimally accepted K-12 academic-achievement goals. The program has four components: high academic standards, tests to measure student progress, accreditation measures to ensure accountability for student achievement, and annual school-performance…

Presents a historical perspective of performance measurement, describing types of performance measures, and examining their use in municipal parks and recreation agencies, noting that more and more parks and recreation agencies are developing performance measurement plans for all divisions and units. The benefits movement (specifically, benefits…

In the spring of 2002 we conducted a structure-focused case study at 4 North Carolina community colleges to understand how selected senior campus leaders assessed a new legislatively-mandated institutional-accountability program. Using confidential interviews and document analysis we collected, analyzed, and interpreted data that revealed clear…

This article argues that outcome-based accountability systems are not likely to close the achievement gap. Using California as an example, it suggests that states need to pay closer attention to learning conditions and powerful programs that deliver quality interventions. The article describes the design of the California low-performing schools…

Accountability is now a requirement in education, and that extends to professional development. Leaders must understand what evaluation is, what its purposes are, and the critical levels of professional development evaluation to be able to provide meaningful data that demonstrate the difference professional learning makes.

This study positioned the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 as a reified colonizing entity, inscribing its hegemonic authority upon the professional identity and work of school principals within their school communities of practice. Pressure on educators and students intensifies each year as the benchmark for Adequate Yearly Progress…