Summarizes results of an opinion survey of governors' aides, legislative chairs of education committees, higher education finance officers, and campus institutional researchers on the use, effects, and future of performance reporting. (EV)

Provides state and campus policymakers' views on the importance and appropriateness of the most common indicators used in state and campus performance reports. (EV)

Explores efforts to reform physical education, noting why they might not have succeeded in the past; examining the general and physical education reform literature with attention to the current standards, assessment, and accountability reform movement prevalent in most states; developing themes facilitating South Carolina's effort to gain support…

Describes how South Seattle Community College (Washington) is addressing the challenge of portraying the variety of assessment efforts that are occurring across all levels--institutional, departmental, and individual course/classroom--in a way that helps the college address meaningful improvement goals at the same time. Contains four references…

Discusses the history, struggles, and successes of assessment work done at Tacoma Community College (TCC) (Washington). Demonstrates the state and national work TCC has accomplished and the partnerships that have been formed with other institutions as a result of the work. Offers assessment grid example. (NB)

Proposed an accountably model that addresses the challenges of allowing school districts to choose the specific strategies they use to measure student performance and evaluated this model using data from multiple sources for all school districts in Florida. Findings identify three strategies that would be useful for this type of accountability…

Explains that universal access to education has created a student body more diverse and less academically prepared for college. States that higher education, when viewed as a business, has shifted much of the learning responsibility from the student to the teacher. Offers guidelines for maintaining ethical standards of conduct in sociology…

Eight educators comment on Deborah Meier's prescription for rebuilding public trust in public education. (Author)

Discusses whether linguistics can meet the challenge of accounting to the general public for the practices and beliefs of lawyers and other professionals. The article emphasizes that members of the professions, such as lawyers, doctors, and psychiatrists, are judged by their interaction with processes having real world outcomes, e.g., trials and…

Describes the system of external institutional evaluation in Netherlands universities, distinguishing between the organizations conducting the assessment itself and the follow-up. The primary assessing organization is a private one, funded and governed by the 14 universities, and uses discipline-based assessment teams. The follow-up assessment is…

Discusses the increased need for school counselors to document their achievements and demonstrate their competencies by compiling and maintaining a portfolio. Recommends the use of portfolios for school counselors, outlines methods for developing them, and suggests a variety of uses for them. Includes appendix outlining portfolio contents. (KW)

Describes 20/20 analysis procedures (which uses the 20th and 80th percentiles to identify students at the margins who need adapted instruction). Also examines cross-categorical programming, costs, needs for efficiency, accountability, and labeling. A methodology using computerized, multiyear 20/20 analyses to estimate school effectiveness…

Maintains that America's lowered expectations about education are not a loss of previous American virtues but neither are they a "culture of indulgence" as Damon suggests; they are simply adaptations by the populace to the difficult job of getting along in a highly competitive world. (MDM)

Effects of student poverty and location on school accountability scores were examined using hierarchical linear modeling and data from 1,115 Kentucky schools in 171 districts. Positive effects of nonmetro location were found, but they did not erase the strong negative effect of poverty. Projections indicate that equitable excellence will not be…

This article discusses the 6-E Report Card, a tool that provides a quantitative evaluation of instructional programs based upon a unique decision-making model that meets objectives by measuring excellence, equity, efficiency, effort, effectiveness, and ethics. Programs are assessed for their ability to meet or exceed predetermined performance…