Perceived shortage of principals, increased accountability demands, the changing role of principals, and the growing influence of the state over school administration have created a set of challenges for principal certification and licensure that have propelled a renewed need for analysis of certification and licensure processes. Recent calls to…

The first step in the Validity and Reliability Study summarizes the history and purpose of California's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), reviews findings from other QRIS evaluation studies, and describes the approach to validating the system in California. The majority of this report focuses on providing context for the California…

This document, which is a checklist, was designed for use by a state team to conduct a preliminary self-analysis of the state?s system of standards and assessments. The checklist is organized into the following sections: (1) Content Standards; (2) Academic Achievement Standards; (3) Overview of the Statewide Assessment System; (4) Technical…

In response to the need to develop reliable methods of evaluating Texas students' achievement of essential competencies, this study was designed to develop multiple-choice test items in food and nutrition in all comprehensive homemaking education courses, the semester course in food and nutrition, and all occupational methods of teaching food and…

To permit local districts to exercise their option to use standardized tests for state-mandated evaluations, a test rating form was developed. A key concern was the percentage of state approved reading and mathematics skills measured by a test, rather than the test's value for other uses. Other content concerns were readability and cultural and…

In this final report of an 18-month series of projects designed to investigate the validity of the General Knowledge (GK) and Communications Skills (CS) tests of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) for North Carolina, highlights and major conclusions are summarized and appropriate standards of performance are recommended. Evidence was…

The primary purpose of the investigation was to determine the extent to which (a) the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment (WAA) adequately measures the skills and concepts that make up the curriculum and instruction of students with significant disabilities; and (b) the WAA adequately measures the concepts and skill areas represented in Wisconsin's…