Despite the need for assessments targeting social and emotional learning (SEL) skills within multitiered systems of support, there are few brief SEL measures available. To address this need, this article describes the development of the Social Skills Improvement System--Social and Emotional Learning Brief Scales--Teacher Form (SSIS…

The SSIS SEL Brief Scales-Student Form (SSIS SEL"b"-S) was developed to create an efficient assessment of students' social and emotional learning (SEL). Using item response theory with ratings from 800 students in Grades 3-12 from the standardization sample, 20 items were selected from the full-length SSIS SEL Rating Form - Student to…

Research has consistently shown that principal leadership matters for successful schools. Evaluating principals on the behaviors shown to improve student learning should be an important leverage point for raising leadership quality. Yet principals are often evaluated with the use of instruments with no theoretical background and little, if any,…

Federal regulations allow up to 2% of the student population of a state to achieve proficiency for adequate yearly progress by taking an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS). Such tests are likely to be easier, but as long as a test is considered a valid measure of grade level content, it is allowable as…