Until recently, states focused on ensuring the presence of a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom. Under the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this title described a teacher holding at least a bachelor's degree and the appropriate state license and…

As state policymakers strive to ensure that every student is taught by an effective teacher and is ready for college and 21st-century careers, they must also make drastic budget cuts. States cannot do more with less without collecting and using quality data to determine which programs and policies increase student achievement and the state's…

America can no longer afford an education system that fails to use data effectively to guide decisionmaking. The education sector is facing ever-increasing demands to improve student outcomes, reduce burden, increase efficiency, and improve transparency. These demands cannot be met without the strategic and effective use of data. Due to the…

Student achievement depends upon successful passage through a series of transitions: elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to college. Increasing the efficiency of successful transitions requires the collection and analysis of student data across these transition points. Yet long-standing separations between…

This paper is meant to help designers of educational accountability systems think more critically about the questions they want to ask schools and the kinds of analyses that best answer these questions. There are two essential questions in school evaluation: how good is this school, and is it getting better? Each of these questions then can be…

This paper presents the evolution of and the lessons learned from a research approach to assessment of student outcomes, specifically of student academic achievement, being used by the Puerto Rico Statewide Systemic Initiative (PR-SSI), which is one of the statewide systemic initiatives for science and mathematics sponsored by the National Science…

The Educational Quality Indicators initiative, a 3-year collaboration between Alberta Education and 12 school districts, generated 10 action research projects that developed educational indicator systems with a broad range of student outcomes, methods of data collection and interpretation, and outcomes reporting. Field testing of these systems…

Contends that systemic reform is required to improve student achievement. Describes 10 system-building standards from the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE): the educational environment, governance and policy issues, preservice and inservice education, teaching practices, assessment practices, personnel and curricular materials…

Oregon's Educational Act for the 21st Century is a remarkably comprehensive and systematic approach to school reform. Relying on a broad partnership of business leaders, parents, teachers, and educational professionals, it calls for a shift in public attitudes, a focus on outcome-based evaluations, and efforts to ensure its compatibility with…

Although every school must develop its own dropout prevention programs, the framework for multifaceted solutions can be similar, involving a systemic approach consisting of the following: (1) identification and intervention policies; (2) interventions by educational leaders, teachers, and parents; (3) academic and support programs; and (4)…

Lessons from the 18-year institutional experience of Alverno College in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) with assessment for the improvement and verification of student learning are summarized. Principles are described that should inform a national assessment system with the dual purposes of improvement and accountability by incorporating the following key…