This report presents California's standards, which are intended for use by local planners to design, implement, and evaluate beginning teacher induction programs. For each standard, there is a statement of the standard itself, a rationale explaining why it is important, and a series of criteria to be used by program designers and evaluators in…

This guide is designed to assist state and local consortia with their evaluation of Tech Prep education programs and with their reporting of Tech Prep program and student outcomes data to meet the accountability requirements of the Perkins Act of 1998. Intended for Tech Prep stakeholders in secondary schools and two-year colleges, the guide also…

Test-based accountability systems are now a central feature of U.S. education policy. Accountability systems are implemented as a way of improving student outcomes through new, highly visible incentives. This paper characterizes the incentives of different state accountability systems and reviews the existing evidence about outcomes. The question…

The purpose of this paper is to report on the progress of work done by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education on developing valid yet efficient measures of instructional content and its relationship to assessment and standards. The goal is to help develop new methodologies to assess the relationships between what is taught and what is…

Federal law now allows billions of education dollars, for a variety of programs, to go to states under a single, consolidated state plan. The goal is to develop integrated, coordinated plans for meeting the requirements of the various programs in a way that best serves children's educational needs. Achievement of that goal depends a great deal on…

This theme issue on standards contains 11 articles written by teachers of English and language arts in Bread Loaf's primarily rural, teacher networks. These narratives describe how teachers in Alaska, South Carolina, Ohio, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Arizona, and New Mexico are implementing state content standards while honoring local contexts for…

This handbook is a tool that reporters can use to uncover the hidden dimensions of race in public education and ask the right questions about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Section 1, "Race Revealed", includes "Special Education" (Daniel J. Losen); "Dropout and Graduation Rates" (Daniel J. Losen);…

This document contains a series of 2001 research briefs, Catalyst: Inquiry for Change (Volume 1), that is part of a research project supported by the Institute for Community College Development at Cornell University, New York. The Institute's research projects are stakeholder driven for the purpose of researching areas of the most interest to…

Research shows that teacher quality affects student achievement more greatly than any other school-based variable. The No Child Left Behind Act requires a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom by the 2005-2006 school year and achievement gains by all students over time. These realities give policymakers a strong incentive to focus on…

This study used data from the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) to evaluate the participation of students with disabilities in the state's comprehensive assessment system. Data on students in grades 4, 8, and 11 during the academic years 1994-1995 through 1996-1997 were collected and analyzed. Results are reported in terms…

This summary examines public opinion research about teacher quality and strategies for improving U.S. teaching quality. Researchers examined surveys of teachers, school board members, principals, students, and the public. This review investigates: what constitutes quality teaching; how to define good teachers; the importance of teacher quality;…

This report discusses the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that require states to develop alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate in large-scale assessment programs. The report also profiles five state alternate assessment practices that have been developed or are emerging and…

This book was written from the Deweyan premise that children will become lifelong, self-directed learners by engaging in inquiry processes with interdisciplinary content and that, from these explorations, upper elementary and middle school students can inductively formulate concepts and generalizations that help to explain the world and what it…

This paper examines whether institutions of higher education (IHEs) should be involved in collaborative induction efforts and whether such involvement would increase the accountability of IHEs' teacher preparation programs. It describes one California teacher preparation program's efforts. The program has maintained its active involvement within a…

This report starts with a quick review of the beginning of standardized testing in U.S. schools and the reasons for growing reliance on testing. It summarizes the recent promising trends and suggests how testing for accountability could be less intrusive and provide better information about achievement in schools. The proposal for a voluntary…