What can teachers do in their classrooms to help students prepare for a high-stakes, standardized, multiple-choice reading test without sacrificing what they know to be best practice? Decreasing class sizes or other solutions that require substantial changes in school finance are not usually realistic options. This article outlines five…

Background/Context: Recent research indicates that social studies is being "squeezed" from the elementary curriculum as instructional time is shifted to language arts and mathematics in response to state testing and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, especially in schools serving poor students and students of color. However, less is…

Proponents of standards-based reform claim that student achievement testing increases accountability and allows for greater instructional consistency. Performance across schools, boards, provinces, and even countries internationally can be compared and contrasted with the aim of identifying exemplary teaching practices. Teachers can also use…

Researchers and policymakers are increasingly interested in the issue of school accountability. Despite this, program standards for afterschool programs are not as fully developed as they are in other fields. This study bridges that gap and presents the results from a study that identifies benchmarks and indicators for high quality afterschool…

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (DDD). It highlights the number of students involved, where they are educated--special schools, special classes or regular classes--and in what phases of education--pre-primary,…

This publication provides a closer look at data reported annually by South Carolina's public institutions of higher education as part of institutional effectiveness reporting and as part of the process of performance funding. Prior to the January 2000 edition, this document was entitled "Minding Our P's and Q's: Indications of Productivity…

Since 2002 the Consortium on Chicago School Research, in collaboration with the Mills College in Oakland, California, has conducted a series of studies on the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative (CHSRI)--a partnership between Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the Gates Foundation, and local Chicago foundations to create approximately two dozen…

This paper presents the public higher education system trends in Connecticut for 2008. This report contains the following sections: (1) FY 2007-2009 Operating Budget Summary; (2) Higher Education in a Statewide Context; (3) General Fund and Operating Budget Expenditure Trends; (4) Comparative Funding Indicators; (5) Enrollment Trends; (6) Degrees…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a federal education law that was passed in 2001 with the laudable but challenging goal of closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and improving academic achievement among all students. To that end, NCLB has held states, school districts, and individual schools to impossibly high standards of…

This document presents a model of school completion outcomes and the indicators of these outcomes for all students, including students with disabilities. School completion is defined in a number of ways, including Grade 12, end of school, and time of "aging out" of eligibility for educational services. The document includes a conceptual…

This evaluation of compensatory education programs in the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Public Schools, funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981, uses an indicator-based multiple-year approach to chart changes between 1985-86 and 1988-89. An educational indicator is a number that provides useful information…

Validity data were collected on tests from five aptitude clusters: information-processing (IP) componential skills, IP metacomponential skills, practical intellectual skills, cognitive flexibility, and cognitive speed. In addition, the IP activities underlying learning were elucidated. IP componential data were derived via two approaches. The…

The goal of technology assessment is to provide a larger view of the utility and potential impact of a class of technology for a set of potential uses. In this paper, the concentration is on technology for training. Some examples are given of technology assessments conducted on behalf of the public by national agencies. This view of technology…

The full National Education Goals Report is a 246-page annual "report card" to the nation designed to focus on measurement: How well are we measuring up against the six national Goals? This 25-page executive summary is a companion document to the full report and attempts to compress its major findings. It is structured into three parts:…

Educational indicators or quality indicators are described. Many states are already using statewide indicators to assess school improvements and the impact of educational reforms. Indicators can basically be defined as statistics that assess desired outcomes, document improvements, and describe characteristics of educational systems. One…