A critical component of the standard setting process is collecting evidence to evaluate the recommended cut scores and their use for making decisions and classifying students based on test performance. Kane (1994, 2001) proposed a framework by which practitioners can identify and evaluate evidence of the results of the standard setting from (1)…

The authors discuss the long-term accumulation of unstandardized and inaccessible content within the Libguides system and the decision-making process to create and implement a set of standards using the migration to the LibGuides2 platform as a vehicle for change. Included in the discussion are strategies for the creation of standards and…

Over the years attempts have been made to standardize sign languages. This form of language planning has been tackled by a variety of agents, most notably teachers of Deaf students, social workers, government agencies, and occasionally groups of Deaf people themselves. Their efforts have most often involved the development of sign language books…

The turn of the century brought a profound change in the accreditation of teacher preparation programs. This shift--from curriculum-based reviews to standards-based reviews--took place in the context of the accountability movement of the late 20th century. The 21st century ushered in what many refer to as "a culture of evidence." From…

This article describes the system of monitoring district instructional-reform efforts and the influences of the system on teachers and school and district leaders in Duval County, Florida. First, the author offers a brief description of the snapshot system. Second, the study's design, data sources, and analytic methods are presented. Third, the…

During the last thirty years, National Qualification Frameworks have emerged as an attempt by the state to "manage" the relations between education, training and work. Drawing on South African experiences of ten years of development of a competency and outcomes based National Qualifications Framework (NQF), this paper highlights the…

Robert Stevenson identified four behavioural and programmatic regularities that have inhibited the implementation of environmental education as envisioned by the framers of the Belgrade Charter and Tbilisi Declaration. These include the presentation of standardised knowledge associated with established disciplines, reliance on teachers as primary…

Under the adequate yearly progress requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2001), states are currently faced with the challenge of demonstrating continuous improvement in student performance in reading and mathematics. Beginning in 2007 to 2008, science will be required as a component of the NCLB Act. This article describes South…

Effective school leadership is key to students' academic success. But the development of effective school leadership has been seriously hampered by the lack of technically sound tools to assess and monitor leaders' performance. With support from The Wallace Foundation, a team from Vanderbilt has been developing such an assessment system, and this…

In the teaching profession, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) is the professional accrediting organization for schools, colleges, and departments of education in the United States. This brochure provides a glimpse of NCATE's standards, focus, and effect on teacher quality and student learning. It explains what…

In a coherent educational assessment system, the relation between the cut scores across the grades of a content area should reflect the goals of the educational system moderated by the state of the standards within that system. In this article, we discuss the need for consistent cut scores across the grades of a content area; we present and…

In recent years, college administrators have become concerned with survey fatigue among students and declining response rates. Some campuses have responded by implementing policies about who can conduct surveys and which topics are permitted. This chapter describes the development of such policies and provides valuable suggestions to campus…

Coming from architecture, through computer science, pattern-based design spread into other disciplines and is nowadays recognized as a powerful way of capturing and reusing effective design practice. However, current pedagogical pattern approaches lack widespread adoption, both by users and authors, and are still limited to individual initiatives.…

In December, 2004, the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) hosted one of its series of national telephone conferences on the topic of access and alignment to the grade-level content for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Dan Wiener from the Massachusetts Department of Education was the practitioner presenter. Dan Wiener's…

This report presents findings from a Cairo conference on vocational education and training (VET) standards. It focuses on four European Training Foundation documents. Chapter 1 introduces an international model for development of standards and explains how to identify employment requirements based on labor market analysis and a questionnaire (and…