Although Response to Intervention (RtI) implementation efforts have been occurring in schools across the country for more than a decade, questions and concerns are emerging, as some schools are not observing significantly improved student achievement or behavior outcomes as expected. In the literature on RtI implementation, most authors indicate…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to the intersection of external and internal accountability systems within urban schools, and the role of school leadership, especially that of the principal, in managing this intersection. In particular, the paper explores how school leaders are able to strengthen and sustain the school's…

In this article, the authors suggest that providing a report card enables an IT department to check its progress and overall performance; communicate the department's effectiveness to university leadership, IT membership, and customers; and make any necessary adjustments. A report card will not show how efficiently the IT department functions, but…

Background: Evaluation is a tool that can promote accountability and enhance organizational improvement. For these reasons funding entities from government to foundations are increasingly relying on program evaluation as a key instrument to determine effectiveness and hold recipient organizations accountable. What has ensued is an environment of…

Given the changing landscape of educational accountability at the local, state, and national levels, and the changes in the uses of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), including the evolving uses of NAEP as a policy tool to interpret state assessment and accountability systems, an explicit statement of the current and potential…

In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education--that is, using various types of student data to inform decisions in schools and classrooms. In October 2008, the Council of the Great City Schools and American Institutes for Research (AIR) launched a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focused…

The authors aimed to incorporate learning into the cognitive assessment framework that exists for static assessment data. In order to accomplish this, they derive a common likelihood function for dynamic models and introduce Parameter Driven Process for Change + Cognitive Diagnosis Model (PDPC + CDM), a dynamic model which tracks learning…

Policymakers across the nation are leading efforts to ensure that every classroom has an effective teacher. Faced with the need to dramatically improve student outcomes, states have embraced a policy agenda that promotes and supports teacher quality in many ways, including developing evaluation and compensation policies, targeting professional…

LOCO-Analyst is a learning analytics tool we developed to provide educators with feedback on students learning activities and performance. Evaluation of the first version of the tool led to the enhancement of the tool's data visualization, user interface, and supported feedback types. The second evaluation of the improved tool allowed us to see…

Assessing general education is not that different from assessing any other type of academic program, but there are some distinctions that make it even more challenging than other types of assessment. This article addresses methods for working with nondepartmentally based and interdisciplinary areas within general education, providing some examples…

Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning have the potential to influence educational policy and practice in profound ways for the systems that are courageous enough to take them seriously, and the Data standard is a critical element systemwide. Schools are overwhelmed with data warehouses, colorful charts and graphs, and endless…

"The First-Year Seminar: Designing, Implementing, and Assessing Courses to Support Student Learning and Success," a five-volume series, is designed to assist educators who are interested in launching a first-year seminar or revamping an existing program. Each volume examines a different aspect of first-year seminar design or…

This article explores the relationship between the lack of visible attention to formative assessment in degree specifications and its marginalization in practice. Degree specification documents form part of the quality apparatus emphasizing the accountability and certification duties of assessment. Ironically, a framework designed to assure…

This paper describes a model proven to be effective for assessing and documenting evidence of student learning outcomes. Specifically, it will share a model, F.A.M.O.U.S. Copyright ©2008, which is an acronym exemplifying six effective steps for complying with institutional accountability and eternal assessment requirements proscribed by the…

This article seeks to examine 2 federally funded early literacy projects, one an Early Reading First demonstration project, the other an Early Childhood Educators Professional Development Research Study. It describes the respective professional development models that include on-site mentoring support to improve teacher quality. The article…