Instructionally supportive accountability tests (a) measure students' mastery of only a modest number of extraordinarily important curricular aims; (b) describe what is to be assessed in clear, teacher-palatable language; and (c) report each student's results for every curricular aim assessed. To determine the suitability of such assessments to…

Many instruments for school self-evaluation have become available in primary education; however, they vary in focus, quality and type (e.g., questionnaires, tests, observations, classroom consultation, quality maps, quick scans, etc), creating problems for schools in selecting instruments fitting their specific situations. Research has been…

The role and performance of the engineering and scientific institutions in the UK have been undergoing gradual change in response to external, State and global influences. Consequently, the institutions are having to adapt and in the process of doing so the traditional balance between learned society and qualifying association activities is now in…

In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have received increasing attention from both policymakers and scholars. This article discusses polluters' incentives to reduce their releases. In particular, using data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory, it examines the impacts of conventional…

This paper considers the role of quality assurance in e-learning; reflecting on the conditions necessary for successful e-learning. It reviews some of the current international work on quality assurance in this area and goes on to consider the ways in which the quality of a process or activity can be assessed--focusing on the use of benchmarking…

This paper presents and critically analyzes data from a project that sought teacher candidates' responses to the process and content of the Ontario Teacher Qualifying Test (OTQT), a mandatory, standardized, pencil and paper initial teacher qualification test. The aim of the project, guided by a critical democratic perspective, was to critically…

School practices for contacting parents should be modernized because they lack reliability and are often ineffective. A field-test was conducted with support from Motorola to assess the potential of new communication methods. One method allows teachers, using a common set of codes, to record notable student conduct onto personal digital assistants…

America's current systems of K-12 and higher education are based on the traditional view that only an elite group of students attends college. Today, the majority of students attend some form of postsecondary education after high school. These students encounter numerous challenges: many do not complete their programs of study, almost half the…

Miami-Dade is just one of the 72 percent of Florida school districts labeled "failing" under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which requires schools to prove students displayed Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in math and reading for two years running. Nationwide, the figure is a startling 27 percent. As states bump up against the…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 has increased emphasis on "closing the gap" between the achievement of African-American and disadvantaged children and that of their respective peers. Using the 2001 results of Kentucky's accountability tests (e.g., CTBS-5, KCCT), Chi-square analyses were performed to determine whether, when…

Despite policy mandates to include students with disabilities in educational assessment and accountability programs, current practices suggest a substantial lack of capacity for effective inclusion. Continuing professional development (CPD) is an essential component of disseminating and implementing effective inclusion practices. Recent reviews of…

This article examines major threats to the validity of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the context of rural schools. Although rural students and their schools made significant academic progress in the past on national and state assessments, the current goal of AYP turns out to be highly unrealistic for them unless states set far lower…

Background: Current federal, state, and local school accountability measures as well as policy initiatives that call for improved leadership have placed increasing demands on principals. Many districts face shortages of appropriate candidates for the job; popularly, this shortage is explained by the fact that simply too few hero-principals exist…

In the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era, accountability has focused almost exclusively on basic academic skills. In this article, the authors ask if the accountability system they have is producing the kind of graduates they want. They state that NCLB holds all elementary schools, regardless of student characteristics, accountable for achieving…

Increasingly, mainstream U.S. classrooms include children who are English-language learners (ELLs). As a result, teachers need to become more aware of ways to assess the literacy progress of their ELL students. The first type of assessment that teachers need to make is to determine ELLs' literacy backgrounds. Teachers can use predictability logs…