Australia and New Zealand stand out as something of an anomaly in the international trend toward developing common standards for evaluation. The national professional association that covers evaluation in both countries, the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES), was one of the earliest and most proactive in developing a comprehensive code of…

This article addresses frequently asked questions about two new policies: a five-year term for NAEYC Accreditation and a 15-day window for validation visits, with 24 hours advance notice. How the five-year policy applies to a program seeking NAEYC Accreditation depends on the program's status in the accreditation process.

The U.S. Department of Education's latest move to grant more flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act, this time aimed at helping schools that narrowly miss the law's requirement for high participation on standardized tests, was generally welcomed. The appetite for further adjustments appears to be growing. The new policy allows states to…

Although becoming widespread, especially in view of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and without a universally-accepted definition, most discussions of standards-based reforms (SBR) include certain commonalities, including: (1) Academic expectations for students; (2) Alignment of key elements of the educational system to promote attainment of these…

This paper contributes to the debate over how the federal government can best help state and local authorities improve student achievement by providing examples from other countries of innovations in the role of the national government. The authors believe that the degree to which foreign policy structures parallel those of the United States are…

Education is the key to young people becoming full partners in shaping a global future and in shaping the nation's future. Quality basic education for young people is key to maintaining Alberta's standard of living and ensuring competitiveness in the world market. The education system must focus on what all students need to learn and be able to…

Policymakers and educators around the nation are wrestling with an important challenge--how to raise expectations for high school achievement, while increasing relevance and engagement in learning to keep students in school. Career and technical education (CTE) is receiving renewed attention as a strategy for increasing school engagement and rigor…

The author has been invited to reply to this response to her article of December 2006 in this journal. This response can only be a summary of some of her findings and a reiteration, in very truncated form, of her arguments. She would refer any interested reader back to her original extended review of the PIRLS project as it was there that she lays…

This article addresses the perennial issue of the criteria by which qualitative research should be evaluated. At the present time, there is a sharp conflict between demands for explicit criteria, for example in order to serve systematic reviewing and evidence-based practice, and arguments on the part of some qualitative researchers that such…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) requires states and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to define and determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting the goal of 100 percent academic proficiency. To address tribes' needs for cultural preservation, NCLBA allows tribal groups to…

One year before the National Education Summit, Congress had reauthorized the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and created a National Assessment Governing Board to develop and oversee policy for the NAEP. In conjunction with the call to establish national education goals, efforts are being made to establish standards for…

Some of the different approaches to standard setting are discussed. Brief comments and references are offered concerning strategies that rely primarily on the use of expert judgment. Controversy surrounds methods that use expert judges, as well as those using test groups to set scores empirically. A minimax procedure developed by H. Huynh, an…

The emergence of frequency modulation or FM radio signals, which arose from the desire to free broadcasting of static noise common to amplitude modulation or AM, has produced the controversial development of stereo broadcasting. The resulting enhancement of sound quality helped FM pass AM in audience shares in less than two decades. The basic…

Historically, radio broadcasting has been affected by innovational, social, technological, and economic change. For instance, FM (frequency modulation) radio emerged out of a desire to free broadcasting of static noise common to AM (amplitude modulation) signals. The eventual response by AM was to improve the technology of the signal. The inquiry…

In recent years educators have been utilizing judgmental methods, such as the ones advocated by Ebel and Angoff, to set minimum competency standards on test items. This study was designed to investigate the reliability and validity of these two procedures in setting minimum levels of performance on 175 vocational evaluator competency statements.…