The move toward assessments that measure student growth, rather than just proficiency, has been perceived as an improvement in state accountability systems. However, Michael Watson explains that, for many students, these measures present an incomplete picture. Because they are based on grade-level assessments, any growth achieved by students who…

School accountability systems in the United States have been criticized on a number of fronts, mainly on grounds of completeness and fairness. This study examines an alternative school quality framework--one that seemingly responds to several core critiques of present accountability systems. Examining results from a pilot study in a diverse urban…

The "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), signed into law in 2015 and still in the midst of implementation, requires states to develop and submit to the U.S. Department of Education a state education accountability plan. Compared to the previous federal education law, the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), ESSA mandates that…

America spends $115,000 per-pupil on education, one of the highest in the world. Even with high funding being provided for the educational budget, standardized state assessment scores are not reflecting the aim for higher quality of education that NCLB is trying to accomplish. Teachers use an assortment of assessments to gauge student's mastery…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives state boards of education a tremendous opportunity to revamp education policy. The federal government will have dramatically reduced influence over issues related to standards and accountability systems. States will have increased freedom to revise state standards and assessment systems, change the…

For more than a decade, states have evaluated school performance largely through a single measure--test scores--and rated schools on whether they improved students' performance in reading or math. The idea was to focus schools' attention on the outcomes that mattered most and to focus states' attention on the schools that needed the most help in…

In 2002, the Monroe County, Georgia, school system was, according to its then-superintendent Scott Cowart, "underperforming." Test scores were low, and several schools faced interventions under the new No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). One decade later, the 4,000-student school district in central Georgia is one of the highest-performing…

In February, 2013, the Division of Early Childhood, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and the National Head Start Association released a collaborative paper to provide clarification and assistance regarding the relationship of response to intervention (RTI) with the field of early childhood (EC). In addition to…

As states develop their accountability and improvement systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) they can choose high-leverage measures of school progress that, when combined with effective policies, hold promise for supporting success for the youth most marginalized by the education system. This paper suggests that to promote equity and…

It has been 10 years since No Child Left Behind (NCLB), with its emphasis on scientifically based instruction as a means for improving the educational outcomes of students, was signed into law. In this article, we review the basic tenets of evidence-based practice as they apply to education as well as the progress that has been made in…

Response to Intervention has the potential to help schools reach the goals of both the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) 2004. The course of action with the Response to Intervention model is to apply instructionally sound practices based on students' needs, monitor students'…

With many states moving toward increased accountability for all teachers, special educators, who have long been held accountable through the implementation of individualized education programs and the use of evidence-based practices, have much to offer. Formative instructional practices are evidence-based techniques that are familiar to special…

Poor early literacy skills can impact a child significantly, limiting school achievement and success throughout the life span. Difficulties are also associated with numerous social problems. Students exhibiting prereading skill deficits often fall even further behind their classmates in later elementary years (Cusumanzo, 2007; Deno, 1989;…

Requirements for reading and ascertaining information from text increase as students advance through the educational system, especially in content-rich classes; hence, monitoring comprehension is especially important. However, this is a particularly challenging skill for many students who struggle with reading comprehension, including students…

Nationally, there are dozens of established indicators of school performance and thousands of possible combinations of those indicators to create an accountability framework. How do policy makers decide which variables are most important? This relates to measurement modeling -- that is, how to incorporate all pieces of the puzzle into a…