Two purposes for early childhood assessment systems are informing program development and providing accountability. Based on findings from a case study of a local Head Start program implementing the National Reporting System (NRS) in 2004-2005, we provide 5 lessons learned from experiences with the NRS that may have implications for other…

Raising standards in education has been the mantra for educational stakeholders in England for the past two decades and has informed national, regional and local agendas for school improvement. In the relentless pursuit of finding solutions to pedagogical problems, action research has been promoted as an effective strategy. Informed by an…

Striving to provide public good and maximize public value strike many as highly abstract and idealistic ideas. Written in the form of an interview, this article, written from the perspective of a practitioner, addresses some of the pragmatic issues that arise when trying to conceptualize approaches to museum offerings and demonstrate their…

The author enjoyed reading Katharine Hay's ambitious and humbling visions for evaluation field building in South Asia. She has successfully positioned herself on a high mountain with a wonderful set of binoculars that enable her to see the entire evaluation landscape of South Asia. She magically sees and describes significant historical forces and…

Current teacher accountability initiatives such as those included in the "No Child Left Behind" legislation in the United States create particular difficulties that impact deleteriously on the performance of professional educators. The quality of public education is undermined when teachers are held accountable to an external authority…

Business programs at colleges and universities presently face wide-ranging challenges in delivering quality education. As more and more business programs find it necessary to conserve or redirect resources, successfully leading through change becomes paramount for departments and their faculty teams. This challenge is compounded by a growing…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether William Deming's 8 Step Model would increase reading achievement in 3rd grade students. The study investigated how well the process based plan-do-check-act model when used as a treatment with fidelity, coupled with the principal as instructional leader would result in success in the age of federal…

This dissertation grows from a concern that the current public school accountability model, designed ostensibly to increase achievement in lower-performing schools, may be creating unidentified negative consequences for teachers and students within those schools. This hermeneutical phenomenological study features the perceptions of seventeen…

Distinct purposes were identified for this phenomenological multiple-case study. The first purpose of the study was to determine in what ways the BbPRP influenced (a) leadership, (b) strategic planning, and (c) process management among the five selected schools within AISD. The second purpose of this study was to examine administrators'…

This action research project report uses standard-based grading to address the problem of traditional grades not adequately assessing student content mastery and students' lack of awareness regarding their strengths and weaknesses. Research was conducted by one elementary and two middle school teachers with 158 students between the dates of…

The federal government announced in late 2011 that as an alternative to waiting for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the U.S. Secretary of Education would consider requests from states to waive certain requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The opportunity to request waivers…

The National High School Center's "Eight Elements of High School Improvement: A Mapping Framework" provides a cohesive high school improvement framework comprised of eight elements and related indicators of effectiveness. These indicators of effectiveness allow states, districts, and schools to identify strengths and weaknesses of their current…

The California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) plays an important role in California's public school accountability program. Beginning in grade 10, students have multiple chances to pass the mathematics and English Language Arts components of this exam. If they do not pass both components by the end of grade 12, they will not receive a high…

Superintendent Andres A. Alonso arrived in Baltimore in 2007 with a vision for improving the city's struggling schools. His vision included empowering school leaders and creating accountability for student learning through a series of reforms that center around a new system for giving resources to schools, called Fair Student Funding (FSF). FSF…

The Federal government has brought the issue of low-performing schools to the forefront of public conversation by committing $3.5 billion over three years to turn around these schools. As of March 2011, over 1200 schools across the country had been awarded School Improvement Grants (SIG). Given the magnitude of this short-term investment and the…