The U.S. Department of Education's (Department) mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. The Department pursues its mission by establishing policies and distributing corresponding funds, focusing national attention on key educational issues,…

In March, 2009, President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative, which established the goal that by 2020 the United States will regain its position as the nation with the highest percentage of its population holding post-secondary degrees and credentials. The College Completion Toolkit provides information that governors and other…

This volume describes state-level educational technology policies, focusing on the implementation of state-level Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) programs in the first years of operation. The report draws on survey data from both state educational technology directors and district-based educational technology coordinators that were…

Conducting scientifically rigorous evaluations of character education interventions is complex. This evaluation guide is presented as a resource primarily for project directors who are federal grantees embarking on an evaluation of a character education intervention, although it contains useful information that can benefit other education…

This report describes the methodology and findings of the NSOPF:04 field test that took place during the 2002?03 academic year. The NSOPF:04 field test was used to plan, implement, and evaluate methodological procedures, instruments, and systems proposed for use in the full-scale study scheduled for the 2003-04 academic year. The field test was…

This publication gives a comprehensive overview of work done across all parts of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Each issue includes short publications, summaries, and descriptions that cover all NCES publications and data products released during a 3-month period. To further stimulate ideas and discussion, each issue also…

This report describes the psychometric characteristics and related methodology of the 9-month data collection of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, in collaboration with several…

This data summary presents data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Technology Trends Study (NETTS). NETTS is a multi-year evaluation that documents the implementation of the Enhancing Education through Technology (EETT) program from fiscal year (FY) 2002 to FY 2007. This summary reviews the methods used to collect and…

Professional development research suggests that teachers learn best from and with each other in ongoing, job-embedded activities. "A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Teams" provides a way of engaging school faculties in sustained, onsite professional development that builds capacity and collegiality, improves teaching quality, and…

This biweekly newsletter contains news and information about school improvement in the United States. It is designed expressly for parents and families. This issue highlights an announcement, by U.S. Department of Education Secretary Rod Paige, of a contract to the National Institute of Statistical Sciences to convene a group of experts to review…

This paper is an examination of student assessment data using multi-level analysis methods often referred to as "value-added" models. The analyses performed provide measures of "effectiveness" for both teachers and schools. The purpose of the paper is to examine the residuals derived from the model for teachers and schools (i.e., their…

This study helps to illuminate how a group of principals use data in light of new state and national requirements for accountability. On a very positive note, the responding principals reported using data to a great extent in their own practices, and they are encouraging their staff to use data in ways that align with the notion of effective…

Monitoring school performance increasingly uses sophisticated analytical techniques. This document investigates whether one such method, hierarchical growth modeling, yields consistent school performance results when different metrics are used as the outcome variable. It is examined as to whether statistical and substantive inferences are altered…

Evidence-centered assessment design (ECD) is an approach to constructing educational assessments in terms of evidentiary arguments. This paper provides an introduction to the basic ideas of ECD, including some of the terminology and models that have been developed to implement the approach. In particular, it presents the high-level models of …

In addition to overcoming the obstacles of poverty, poor nutrition and a lack of health care, migrant children and youths in the United States face difficulties transferring records between schools, overcoming language and cultural barriers and succeeding in school despite social isolation. To respond to the needs of migrant children and youths,…