The higher education accountability efforts of the past decade have placed pressures on universities to more rigorously evaluate the quality and outcomes of their programs while the emergence of new methodologies, from big data approaches to business analytics platforms, have also expanded ways of measuring the quality and return on investment of…

K-12 English language proficiency tests that assess multiple content domains (e.g., listening, speaking, reading, writing) often have subsections based on these content domains; scores assigned to these subsections are commonly known as subscores. Testing programs face increasing customer demands for the reporting of subscores in addition to the…

This article shares findings from a multilevel analytic induction of administrators, teachers, and gifted students within specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools about their beliefs regarding the role of standards and standardized tests in the education of gifted learners. Sharing results from a cross-case…

Social work educators are challenged to adopt innovative instructional methods and pedagogies to prepare students to meet the contemporary needs of diverse client populations. A team-based learning (TBL) approach is a pedagogical strategy that utilizes cooperative and collaborative learning principles to inspire academic, professional, and…

Early childhood education faculty from a college collaborated with a local public school district to conduct a series of professional development workshops for early childhood practitioners. The workshop series was designed to address pedagogical concerns identified by district administrators and teachers, as well as to help early childhood…

English learners (ELs) constitute one of the largest subgroups enrolled in the US public education system. The state of California has an estimated 1.5 million ELs in kindergarten through Grade 12. This mixed methods study employed improvement science principles to understand how three high school physics teachers implemented project-based…

The Wyoming Community College Commission's internal strategic plan for the five-year period spanning 2016 through 2020 is taking a new streamlined approach to conveying future goals. Specific agency sections' mission statements, responsibilities, and accomplishments will be relayed in the agency's annual report. For the time span of 2016 through…

Youth in the juvenile justice system need access to high-quality educational services and supports in order to reduce their risk of reoffending and increase their likelihood of further participation in education and the workforce. However, states have historically struggled to provide effective educational services to youth who are incarcerated.…

In 2016, 20 states administered the ACT exam to all high school students. Of those 20 states, three use the ACT in their statewide testing program as an assessment for accountability at the high school level. States using the tests as part of an accountability system are required to submit results from an independent alignment study to the U.S.…

This dissertation is intended to complement the conversation in the social sciences about the challenging role of campus principals and the influence they have on teacher retention and job satisfaction. School principals are held accountable for creating positive change within the campus, therefore they supervise the operational and instructional…

The federal government's Direct Loan program dominates the student-loan market today, issuing 90 percent of all loans made across the country each year. Students pursuing everything from short-term certificates to master's degrees qualify for nearly $100 billion in loans every year at terms more generous than most private lenders would offer.…

This chapter focuses on perspectives of external data reporting and their implications for institutional research offices and campuses as a whole. The authors examine a variety of uses for externally reported data and explore opportunities for using these data more fully across the institution.

A new breed of leader is needed for American public schools, one who can both promote the public good and meet modern accountability demands. Often referred to as a scholar-practitioner, this type of leader blends theory with practice, philosophizing practice while practicing a philosophy. Such blending in a person is not simple, however, because…

This article explores the growing importance of Teaching Philosophy Statements (TPS) as a tool to positively impact teaching styles and methods. The changing landscape of teaching at the college level is addressed with an emphasis on the growing importance of accountability. How new and senior faculty are affected by the TPS is considered as well…

I work selectively with poststructuralist theories in order to give an account of the subject of policy as a constitutive relationship between social policy and the embodied human subject. Drawing on theories of subjectivity, narrative and governmentality, I articulate possibilities for analysing narrated accounts of experience as a mode of…