This paper presents a profile of Palm Beach's Quality Counts prepared as part of the Child Care Quality Rating System (QRS) Assessment Study. The profile consists of several sections and their corresponding descriptions including: (1) Program Information; (2) Rating Details; (3) Quality Indicators for Center-Based Programs; (4) Indicators for…

This paper presents a profile of Missouri's Quality Rating System prepared as part of the Child Care Quality Rating System (QRS) Assessment Study. The profile consists of several sections and their corresponding descriptions including: (1) Program Information; (2) Rating Details; (3) Quality Indicators for Center-Based Programs; (4) Indicators for…

This paper presents a profile of North Carolina's Star Rated License System prepared as part of the Child Care Quality Rating System (QRS) Assessment Study. The profile consists of several sections and their corresponding descriptions including: (1) Program Information; (2) Rating Details; (3) Quality Indicators for Center-Based Programs; (4)…

This paper presents a profile of Virginia's Star Quality Initiative prepared as part of the Child Care Quality Rating System (QRS) Assessment Study. The profile consists of several sections and their corresponding descriptions including: (1) Program Information; (2) Rating Details; (3) Quality Indicators for Center-Based Programs; (4) Indicators…

This paper presents a profile of Ohio's Step Up to Quality prepared as part of the Child Care Quality Rating System (QRS) Assessment Study. The profile consists of several sections and their corresponding descriptions including: (1) Program Information; (2) Rating Details; (3) Quality Indicators for Center-Based Programs; (4) Indicators for Family…

It is argued that assessment of student writing can be enhanced by adoption of a functional approach to linguistic analysis; through their research, functional grammarians have provided language teachers with criteria for evaluating the extent to which learners have gained control of the grammatical and discourse features of a variety of…

Articles related to assessment in the field of reading are presented to provide ideas for those studying reading and reading assessment. There are two sections to the bibliography: the articles themselves and an index. Many of the entries describe informal assessments and are intended mainly for classroom use. The 124 articles are listed in…

Eighteen key individuals from the business, labor, and training sectors and other organizations concerned with the purchase of private training programs were consulted in an effort to determine the role of Canada's federal government and New Brunswick's provincial government in quality assurance for consumers of private training programs. There…

In many schools and districts, teacher evaluation is poorly conducted, or even disparaged or ignored altogether. This handbook advocates a new approach to teacher evaluation--a cooperative effort undertaken by a group of professionals. Evaluation can reassure teachers that they are doing good and valued jobs, give security and status to…

This book presents an instructional improvement system based on critical instructional factors identified by research. Teaching activities are provided for each of four components of effective teaching--planning, managing, delivering, and evaluating instruction. For each component, several teaching principles are identified and explained, and for…

With the increase in workplace English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) literacy education programs, there is a need to assess whether the attention given to improving basic skills and English language proficiency has made a change in the participant and in the workplace. Such evaluations often use both qualitative and quantitative measures of program…

This practicum identified an inability of staff to facilitate play among students with diverse abilities in an inclusive preschool setting, and presented staff training projects to improve such facilitative skills. Because the staff lacked knowledge regarding play characteristics, functions, and categories needed to provide necessary interventions…

When tests contain few items, observed score may not be an accurate reflection of true score, and the Mantel Haenszel (MH) statistic may perform poorly in detecting differential item functioning. Applications of the MH procedure in such situations require an alternate strategy; one such strategy is to include background variables in the matching…

The last decade has seen an enormous increase in interest in and use of educational indicators. This paper focuses on K-12 student outcome indicators and measures of how well students have learned what is expected of them--the raison d'etre of schooling. It provides a Canadian perspective on student outcome indicators and has three major purposes:…

A multi-pronged comparative approach was used to identify training and development needs specific to faculty evaluators of prior learning experience essays. Surveys were administered to 39 active evaluators who were members of the National-Louis University (NLU) faculty and 14 directors of prior learning assessment programs external to NLU. The…