All students, including students with disabilities, must be included in state accountability systems as required by law. In April 2007, federal regulations provided states the flexibility to offer another assessment option--an Alternate Assessment based on Modified Achievement Standards (AA-MAS) for some students with disabilities. The AA-MAS is…

The 2001 results of Arizonas Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) mark the third annual release of this important school accountability tool. The 2001 MAP results are slightly different from the results of previous years in that they show the percent of students who achieve One Years Growth (OYG) and present results in a more accessible format. The…

The standards presented in this book, for reading, writing, and mathematics, are those that will be initially assessed by Arizona's Instrument To Measure Standards (AIMS). These standards and those for other content areas will be a road map for education in Arizona. A statewide test is being developed for each of these areas to measure student…

In an attempt to include more students with disabilities in large-scale assessments, 12 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia) allowed out-of-level testing during the 2000-2001 school year. This report discusses the context of state assessment…

Arizona funding for adult education is authorized by Arizona Revised Statutes; federal funding is received under provisions of the Adult Education Act. The mission of Arizona adult education programs is to ensure adults' access to high quality educational opportunities to support them in their employment, job training, and higher educational…

To provide a rationale and policy agenda for early childhood programs in Arizona and to illuminate issues and concerns that surround decisions regarding preschool programs, this report reviews the background of the current preschool movement, describes the efforts of other states to establish preschool education, and discusses and makes…

This survey of educators examined validity issues in Arizona's program of authentic assessment of written communication. The paper concludes that authentic measures lack meaningful standards. Major flaws were reported in the areas of "fairness,""transfer and generalizability,""content quality," and…

The Continuous Uniform Evaluation System (CUES) provides the means for Arizona school districts to demonstrate accountability for achieving the goal of assisting all public school students in Arizona to develop the basic skills of reading, writing, and computation. These suggested guidelines for the development and implementation of a continuous…

In compliance with mandates of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Arizona Department of Education has completed its evaluation of effectiveness for state and locally administered programs in the context of Arizona's existing Chapter 2 goals. The evaluation focused first on state-administered programs and then considered locally…

This year the Center on Education Policy (CEP) analyzed data on the achievement of different groups of students in two distinct ways. First, it looked at grade 4 test results to determine whether the performance of various groups improved at three achievement levels--basic and above, proficient and above, and advanced. Second, it looked at gaps…

At the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the call for all students to be "proficient" in reading and mathematics by 2014. Yet the law expects each state to define proficiency as it sees fit and design its own tests. This study investigated three research questions related to this policy: (1) How consistent are various…

Test results are presented from the 11th year of the Arizona Pupil Achievement Testing Program, administered as mandated by the state legislature, which requires that a nationally standardized norm-referenced achievement test in reading, grammar, and mathematics be given to students in grades 2 through 11, with representative samples tested in…

Test results are presented for the Arizona Pupil Achievement Testing Program for fall 1991. In the 1991-92 school year, the state legislature mandated that only grades 4, 7, and 11 be tested. Although school districts could elect to test other grades, results in this report represent only tests for grades 4, 7, and 11 on either the Iowa Tests of…