Developing helping skills and strategies for working with groups, parents, and other professionals is essential for teacher/advisors desiring to create a more favorable learning environment. School counselors are the key to teacher growth and development in program development, time management, creative leadership, accountability, and high,…

Explains assessment's nature and purpose and appropriate classroom conditions for its use. Describes a teaching and learning model for the assessment cycle that includes application of learning targets, purposes, methods, feedback/inference, and documentation and communication of results. Delineates six core principles for quality assessment. (MLH)

Charter-school proponents overlook three overarching concerns. Funding must come from existing school budgets; charter-school populations are more homogeneous than in most public schools; and the constitutional separation between school and religion will be compromised. Studies in California, Arizona, and other states reveal accountability and…

Suggests some things that can be done to make charter schools more accountable and to promote innovation and diversity. Remedies are offered for the areas of (1) accountability; (2) funding; (3) choice and student characteristics; and (4) innovation and empowerment. (SLD)

Reviews the young charter-school movement's status and effects. Advocates claim charter schools' mere existence in an area stimulates reform. So far, chartering has shown tremendous diversity and engaged many highly motivated people. Systemic change will depend on American educators' responsiveness to society's Information-Age demands. (Contains…

This article describes the teacher education program in special education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The program has developed and integrated program standards and accountability into the teacher education curriculum. The process, impact, and challenges of working toward becoming a standards-based teacher education program are…

Two hundred undergraduate and graduate teacher education students and 11 staff or faculty advisors were surveyed concerning academic advising. Findings indicated great variability in academic advising services across colleges and between student groups. Recommendations include recognizing advising as a high priority activity, training advisors,…

Examines people's typical queries about a child's performance, school success or failure, best learning practices, and ways to determine educational effectiveness. To provide useful information about student achievement, an accountability system must embody clear standards that have been communicated to students, parents, teachers and other…

California holds special-education students accountable for statewide assessments, district content and performance standards, and the general-education core curriculum. Key performance indicators provide concrete data to the state and help schools demonstrate whether all their students are achieving. The Centralia District's reading…

Created in 1987 by the International Organization for Standardization, in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO 9000 is attempting to develop a world standard to help companies and other institutions measure and monitor their quality-control efforts. This article describes four school districts' successful efforts to secure ISO 9000 certification. (MLH)

This article describes Outcome Based Management components, including identifying highest level outcomes, targeting priorities, clarifying outcomes, maintaining stakeholder collaboration, declaring realities, producing stakeholder benefits, outlining needs, establishing rules, comparing results, productizing around outcomes, providing feedback,…

This article offers a way to build accountability by utilizing outcome relevant information along with outcomes to ensure relevance of evaluation results. It describes a process that incorporates use of logic models for comparing child, family, and community context for the program, the service delivery strategies, and expected outcomes. (Contains…

This article describes practical methods for agencies to move from a process to an outcomes focus when preparing and presenting reports to payers and regulators. Essential components of an outcomes system are outlined, and methods for preparing and presenting reports are drawn from experiences at Father Flanagan's Boy's Home. (Contains…

A case study of Queensland, Australia, elementary principals found their jobs significantly affected by school-based management. Principals are expected to lead their communities through the change process and facilitate cultural change while responding to greater accountability demands from the system. Managerialism has eclipsed educational…

Discusses evidence from the British Universities Council for the Education of Teachers to the House of Commons Select Committee concerning methods of preservice teacher education evaluation by the Office for Standards in Education, explaining that the evidence represents a significant critique of the impact of recent teacher education reforms. A…