In a series of policy documents over the past decade, the idea of a "New Professionalism" for teachers has been constructed. It encompasses three core components: a national framework of professional standards; performance management; and continuing professional development (CPD). The planned interplay of these components into a coherent…

Electronic portfolios (eportfolios) are presented in the literature as a technological tool with significant potential for professional application. In New Zealand the introduction of eportfolios is a recent innovation, and not much is known about the ways in which learners view this technology or the ways in which it might support their learning…

For their ambitious project, called America at War, high school juniors at Da Vinci Charter Academy in the Davis (California) Joint Unified School District didn't just study history. They became historians. Their project offers compelling evidence of what students can accomplish through project-based learning (PBL), an instructional approach that…

Multiple-choice (MC) reading comprehension test items comprise three components: text passage, questions about the text, and MC answers. The construct validity of this format has been repeatedly criticized. In three between-subjects experiments, fourth graders (N[subscript 1] = 230, N[subscript 2] = 340, N[subscript 3] = 194) worked on three…

Early last week the U.S. Department of Education announced an unexpected 16 finalists for the first round of Race to the Top (RTT) funding--a veritable traffic jam in the Race to the Top. The finalists have requested a total of $6.5 billion in funds, but only $4.3 billion is up for grabs, and that needs to be spread over two rounds of competition.…

Most agree that schools have a special obligation to study the effectiveness of their educational programs and seek ways to improve student learning. Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard University, has persuasively argued that schools must envision themselves as "learning organizations." Like hospitals and businesses, Bok writes,…

This study adopted a multilevel modeling (MLM) approach to examine the contribution of rater and essay factors to variability in ESL essay holistic scores. Previous research aiming to explain variability in essay holistic scores has focused on either rater or essay factors. The few studies that have examined the contribution of more than one…

After some 65 years of international development assistance, it is still difficult to show the effectiveness of aid in ways that are fully convincing. In part, this reflects inadequacies in the evaluation systems of the bilateral, multilateral, and global organizations that provide official development aid. Underlying these weaknesses often are a…

The curriculum is established. Lesson plans are in place. Repertoire has been chosen. A regular rehearsal and performance schedule is underway. Now it is time to start evaluating how much and how well students are learning. Time, in other words, for one of the most essential--and trickiest--parts of the music educator's job: assessment. According…

Policymakers aiming to close the well-documented achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students have increasingly turned their attention to issues of teacher quality. A number of studies have demonstrated that teachers are inequitably distributed across student subgroups by input measures like experience and qualifications, as well…

As new performance-management-related policies go from idea to implementation, policy makers and education leaders will be called upon to flesh-out what are still broad principles in many areas. This represents a significant inflection point for the teaching profession and the management of public school systems. Early decisions will determine…

Research on evidence-based writing intervention practices as well as reliable and valid assessments of elementary-aged students' writing fluency has been lacking compared to other academic areas (i.e., reading). Performance feedback interventions targeting writing fluency are gaining empirical support (Eckert et al., 2006); however, growth…

This paper considers how policy-led processes of education reform have reshaped the space in which to think about gender and literacy, both in England and elsewhere. In many jurisdictions, the discourse on quality in education now focuses almost exclusively on numerical outcomes, whether they derive from the school, and/or at local or national…

There is little doubt that the assessment and evaluation of student learning, as well as the assessment and evaluation of a teacher's pedagogical skills and curriculum, is of tremendous importance. Indeed, without any evidence that learning is taking place, why should a school district invest time and resources in a given subject area? Yet…

A household name synonymous with modern telecommunications, Verizon's performance management innovations in 2010 kept pace with the growth of its brand. Many people probably are customers of the company's services. What's less known to the public is the consistent quality of Verizon's learning and development programs. A regular on the "Training"…