The Quality Education Checklist focuses on key inputs, processes, and outputs of schools needed to ensure continuous improvement. Intended as a self-auditing aid for schools, the checklist may also be used as a method to define the priority of areas for improvement, as a way to gather information from customers, as a professional development…

This report presents information from a conference of leaders from districts and states that have been implementing policies to end social promotion. Discussions examined: goals for ending social promotion; promising intervention strategies (using comprehensive accountability systems, using multiple measures to determine grade placement, offering…

In little over a decade, England has given its 24,000 governing boards of public schools the power to hire their principals and virtually autonomous authority over their school budgets. England established, and then curtailed, a national voucher program. It made all its public schools "schools of choice." It created a new type of public…

Recent shifts toward collaborative learning and learner-centered language indicates that: (1) student diversity is increasing; (2) delivery, interaction, and assessment must occur across an expanding range of contexts, cultures, and knowledge parameters; and (3) learners must be empowered to accept responsibility for their learning and also to…

The accountability program of North Carolina's 67 alternative schools was studied after its first year of implementation. North Carolina State Board of Education adopted a policy requiring alternative schools to participate in its ABCs Accountability Program during the 1999-2000 school year. The ABCs program is based on Accountability, Basics, and…

The Texas "Families First" project was started to accomplish the following: (1) strengthen the capacity of local family literacy projects to design, support, and administer high quality programs by leveraging resources from several agencies in the state; and (2) finalize the indicators of program quality (IPQs) in early childhood…

This document presents the proceedings of the sixth National Monitoring Conference concerned with implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Introductory material describes the purpose and background of the document and the federal monitoring of states, including the Continuous Improvement Monitoring Process (CIMP) and…

In 1998, the Chicago Public Schools piloted the Chicago Academic Standards Exam (CASE) to assess how well students had learned the content and processes delineated in the Chicago Academic Standards (CAS) and Frameworks. This report examines the implementation of district curricular standards and assessments and the effects on teaching in four high…

The Office of the State Comptroller in New York audited the records and procedures used in administering the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) at Taylor Business Institute (Taylor) for the academic years 1995-96 through 1997-98. Taylor, located in Manhattan, offers both degree programs and diploma programs in Accounting, Business Management,…

These three newsletters for 1998 highlight the following topics and issues. The March newsletter features an article on streamlining the transfer ready model, which includes an equation to find the transfer directed rate and the transfer ready rate. The new transfer ready model is divided into three categories, the beginning cohort, the transfer…

The Tennessee Board of Regents systemwide report card and individual report cards for each of the 14 community colleges are presented. The purpose of developing this report card was to respond to the public's increased calls for accountability in higher education. The report cards--47 in all, one for the system and one for each of the 46…

This paper provides a survey of accountability-related activities in states outside of California, summarizes the variables used, provides information on the advantages and disadvantages of various accountability systems, and suggests some policy recommendations that have been made in other states implementing performance-based funding. This…

This handbook provides guidance for California educators to help them implement a standards-based education for young adolescents. The book contains helpful information for school personnel about what they need to know and do to make standards-based education a success. It examines such issues as school culture, classroom organization,…

In enacting new teacher quality provisions in the Higher Education Act, Congress intended to increase clarity and consistency of public reporting about the status of teacher education programs and ensure that states establish accountability measures for teacher preparation institutions. Beginning in 2001, states must report yearly data on six…

The conceptualization of equity as student learning and accountability as testing performance provided the theoretical framework for this study. The purpose of this analysis was to explore the relevance of school and social variables on student performance across 4 years in a school district in Kentucky. Multiple regression analyses were used to…