After a foreword by Patricia McGrath Russavage, this yearbook contains the following eight articles: (1) "IRA Resolution on Literacy Assessment"; (2) "Historical Perspectives by Dale Johnson and S. Jay Samuels" (Shirley A. Wagoner and Janice Almasi); (3) "Report Cards in Literacy Evaluation: Teacher's Training, Practices,…

The methods used to assign grades to students have long been of concern to teachers. Traditional approaches to solving the difficulties have centered on norm-referenced and criterion-referenced evaluations. A promising alternative arises when criterion-referenced evaluation is linked with contract grading. A student may contract with a teacher to…

Serious drawbacks can be cited for almost every form of student performance evaluation. The typical A-B-C-D report seldom tells anything really meaningful; the arguments against this system are many--unless you have straight A offspring. Written comments or reports are good if they tell, in a meaningful way, what the student is accomplishing in…

This report presents both the Bureau-Wide Annual Report Card for 2003-2004 and individual report cards for 120 schools. Information presented in each report card include: tribes served, type of school, grades, accreditation, enrollment, goals (performance indicators) data, staff development, number of reported incidents involving either substance…

This document contains highlights from "Measuring Up 2002," a report that grades states on their higher education performance. "Measuring Up" is based on quantitative measures of performance rather than on the opinions and judgments of authors or sponsors. "Measuring Up" shows that many states have made substantial strides in preparing high school…

Administrators are struggling to make the report cards sent home to parents more meaningful. Alternative ways to report student progress find more favor among educators than parents, as anecdotal evidence from several communities shows. Revamping attempts fail due to substantive problems with new reporting procedures or inept public-relations…

Provides guidelines to make grades a better assessment of learning. Argues that, for any assessment task to be fair, its content, context, and performance expectations should (1) reflect knowledge appropriate to all students; (2) tap knowledge that all students have had time to acquire in the class; and (3) and be as free as possible of cultural,…

Making report cards more understandable and valuable to users is a top priority for educators revising them. Administrators should tie report cards to new standards and exams; be open-minded; involve parents, teachers, and schools; check with technology people; and strive for clarity. A Maryland district's experience is profiled. (MLH)

The relationships between maternal beliefs in control and responsiveness and adolescent academic achievement were examined by interviewing 59 Black mothers and female guardians of adolescents, ages 11 to 19, living in a northeastern small city or adjacent suburb and correlating their answers to year-end report cards of their adolescents.…

This investigation compared United States and New Zealand teachers' perceptions of classroom interventions for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants read one of six vignettes describing a child with symptoms representative of ADHD. The number and type of symptoms were consistent across all vignettes. Next, teachers read a…

The tables presented in this document show the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) results for the past two years. Twenty-four tables show results as percent at each performance level and percent passing, as well as percent of students tested. The tables shown in this document include: (1) Mathematics Grade 3; (2) Reading Grade 3; (3)…

Student-led parent conferences allow students to gain significant insights about themselves as learners in ways traditional parent-teacher conferences do not. This guide draws on two teachers' experience to help other teachers implement student-led parent conferences that will enhance parent involvement and student learning. Chapter 1, "Why…

This publication is the sixth issue of a report required by state legislation to examine how well North Carolina schools are serving the children and youth of the state. It presents information that is related primarily to the outcomes of education based on student achievement. Statewide performance results and individual reports for the 119 local…

To remedy the problem of an ineffective homework policy, a Follow Through kindergarten teacher at the George Howland elementary school in Chicago, Illinois, implemented a practicum designed to increase parent involvement with the school. The program designed for the practicum included: (1) regular homework assignments, (2) grading of homework by…

The development of the Tennessee school system Commissioner's Report Card (CRC) and the School Report Card--later named the Tennessee School Improvement Project (TSIP)--is described. The report card project began in 1984 when statewide mandated achievement testing was introduced. The first CRC included limited results of such testing. The first…