Teachers have sought appropriate strategies to ensure that students with disabilities receive the support they need within the general education classroom (Klingner, Vaughn, Hughes, Schumm, & Elbaum, 1998). Paving the road to inclusion with successful academic experiences for students with mild disabilities has been especially challenging in the…

Questions related to the inclusion of students with disabilities in the Oregon statewide assessment program were sent to 1,201 special education teachers and 625 principals representing Grades K-12. Teachers and principals responded positively to questions probing their knowledge of statewide policy and their understanding of how to acquire…

Northern Kentucky University shapes internal and external accountability efforts around its mission to meet the needs of the region.

As the number of students who are struggling in school grows, the need for general and special education to come together to create the vision and capacity to educate all students becomes more and more pronounced. Collaboration by teachers is called for in the schools, likewise, it is called for in teacher education. Collaboration between general…

In the present climate of public accountability, there is increasing demand to show "what works" and what return is gained for the public from investments to improve communities. This increasing demand for accountability is being met with growing confidence in the field of philanthropy during the past 10 years that the impact or effectiveness of…

The roles and expectations of managers in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector are changing under dynamically complex conditions. The adoption of a more "open" national training market as a government policy initiative has led to significant changes within VET providers and significant challenges for VET managers. This…

This article provides an introduction to The Health Practitioners Competency Assurance Act (HPCAA) which took effect on 18 September 2004. The Act was introduced to provide consistent accountability across health professions and make it easier for the New Zealand public to understand what health service each registered professional provides. To…

This paper aims to examine current nationwide youth fitness test programs, address problems embedded in the programs, and possible solutions. The current Fitnessgram, President's Challenge, and YMCA youth fitness test programs were selected to represent nationwide youth fitness test programs. Sponsors of the nationwide youth fitness test programs…

In the complex environment of 21st-century public education, a consensus has emerged among policymakers, researchers, and educational practitioners that the single most important factor contributing to student learning is the quality of teaching. Calls for evidence of a more effective teacher workforce from policymakers, federal agencies, state…

In this article, the authors aim to present and discuss competing accountability approaches, or models, designed to systematically indicate how a school's students are performing academically. Within the framework of the current federally mandated accountability legislation, increased interest in models measuring school performance has caused…

Accountability in Chicago in the 1990s derived from progressive reform legislation adopted in 1988 and 1995. The Illinois General Assembly in 1988 passed the Chicago School Reform Act (P.A. 85-1418), which included a set of goals, a redistribution of the school district's resources, and a decentralization of decisionmaking to the school level. The…

This paper is the second of two (see pt. 1) that describe a six-part conceptual framework for designing and evaluating digital libraries for mathematics education in K-12 settings: information literacy, information organization, integrated learning, adoption of new educational standards, integration of pertinent changes in educational policy…

In May 2000, a class action lawsuit on behalf of California's public school students, Williams v. State of California, was filed in state court in an effort to make the state address inequities in its public schools. The central issue of the case was students' access to the "bare essentials" of public education: qualified teachers,…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) assumes that state-mandated tests provide useful information to school administrators and teachers. However, interviews with administrators and teachers suggest that Minnesota's tests, which are representative of the current generation of state-mandated tests, fail to provide useful information to administrators…

Although criticized by many, the Boston Public (BP) television show raises important issues about the realities of high school life. At a time when educational policy makers see a need to improve student test scores, this show suggests that other issues are more important in the lives of modern high school students, teachers, and administrators.…