Although America has committed itself to building a rigorous public educational system, student achievement gaps and low-performing schools continue to exist. Schools with high proportions of students of color and students from poverty are less likely to offer a challenging curriculum. State systems of standards and accountability have often been…

This report reviews implementation of Phase 1 of the New York City Board of Education's Performance Driven Budgeting (PDB) initiative from 1997-00. This initiative generated a new element in school-based planning for instructional improvement, explicitly linking school-level budgeting and efforts to improve student and school performance. The…

Within the past 2 decades, the nature of school and university partnerships has changed so that collaboration now represents a real opportunity to make systemic change and improvement. A number of factors influence the success or failure of such collaborations: (1) shared goals; (2) institutional differences; (3) assessment and accountability; (4)…

This document contains recommendations from the Sunset Commission for the Interagency Council on Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) in Austin, Texas. Recommendations include: (1) modify ECI's current method of purchasing early intervention services to ensure the state receives the best value for its dollars; (2) tap additional funding sources to…

This report contains recommendations from the Sunset Advisory Commission for the Interagency Council on Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) in Austin, Texas. The Commission review of ECI focused on maximizing the resources of the existing service delivery system to improve the quality of services and to provide services to more children and their…

The accountability subset of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) was studied over 4 years to identify trends that might explain why the 1999 TAAS passing rate did not decrease as was predicted. Expanding the accountability index in those years to include special education students was expected to cause a decline in the TAAS…

This book documents classroom practices and considers the implementation and consequences of the Kentucky Education Reform (KERA) Act through case studies, comparisons to other models, and responses from national experts. The chapters are: (1) "Kentucky Lesson: How High Stakes School Accountability Undermines a Performance-Based Curriculum…

This almanac provides information about the major participants in external quality review in higher education, listing recognized regional and national accrediting organizations, specialized and professional accrediting organizations, and state agencies, with contact available for each organization and agency. An overview section: discusses the…

This paper examines how motivations for school-board membership influence individual board member's agendas. It suggests the implications of individual agendas for board dynamics and superintendents when both must be accountable to state and federal mandates and their own district's desire to collaborate to improve academic achievement for all…

The Victorian school accountability framework is designed specifically for Victorian public schooling in the 1990s. These schools have three chief characteristics: (1) a high level of school autonomy in operational decisions about research allocation, human-resource management, and staff selection; (2) a common framework for curriculum and…

This collection of seven papers provides a view of the future of educational leadership. Some of the articles deal with the life and world of the principal, while others discuss the issues involved in training educators to become effective educational leaders. The first study examines methods and structures for preparing educators and deals with…

This report provides an overview of Salt Lake Community College and assesses institutional performance on several indicators. The following indicators are included: (1) participation rate by ethnicity; (2) participation rate by disability; (3) new student assessment of programs and services; (4) success rates of developmental education students;…

This paper outlines the moral underpinnings of results-oriented accountability, drawing on lessons learned while teaching a seminar on accountability and highlighting the development of accountability policy in North Carolina. The paper notes that contemporary thinking about results-oriented accountability "reeks" of moral judgment. It…

This paper summarizes what is known about the effects of Texas policies to raise academic standards, measure student performance, and impose consequences for results over the past decade. A careful review of the best available evidence shows that, while Texas has not yet achieved an education "miracle," the state has taken several steps…

This paper makes the case that the high-stakes testing and accountability program currently in place in Massachusetts misuses scores from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to select particular schools as exemplary. School awards and recognition programs in Massachusetts imply that score gains are equivalent to school…