The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is the nation's oldest and largest urban school choice program, offering private-school scholarships to low-income students in the city of Milwaukee since 1990. In the early years of the program, voucher schools were not required to test their students, though many of them did so using nationally normed…

The adoption of state accountability testing in the 1990s coincided with the movement of some school start dates from September into August. Using data from Wisconsin, this paper connects these phenomena, showing that some low-scoring districts advanced their school start dates to allow their students more time to prepare for exams. I use a 2001…

In spring 2009, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) continued its research on the impact of test-based federal and state accountability policies by conducting case studies of six high schools in six different districts within Washington State. The purpose was to learn more about the curricular and instructional changes that administrators and…

More than half the States have passed accountability legislation. In many instances, this legislation has had a direct effect on the principal's role in his building and in his school district. This bibliography has been compiled to assist principals and other leaders in secondary education finding resources to clarify accountability concepts. The…

This report contains replies to questionnaires sent to State legislatures, legislative service agencies, State school boards associations, and State offices of the NEA and the AFT asking for information on legislation and achievements in education. Information from the replies is supplemented by data acquired from reviews of newsletters,…

A bill introduced in the New York State Legislature on April 26, 1979, would require that all tests used for postsecondary or professional school admissions become "public records" after they have been administered. The New York State Education Department is opposed to this bill because it would greatly increase the cost of test…

The first part of this report highlights what is required in the legislative language of statutes enacted by various States by identifying their specific characteristics in a series of tables. Discussion of these characteristics and comparisons and comments on omissions and trends are presented in the text. The second part of the report consists…

Examines factors contributing to increasing acceptance of and dependence on state and local educational testing. Factors examined include the accountability movement, Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, National Assessment of Educational Progress, growth in statewide and local assessment, and minimum competency testing. (SM)

This looseleaf publication updates an earlier report. Some of the pages contain new laws enacted since the first report was completed. The report provides tables showing the status of accountability legislation as of the fall of 1972 and texts of the actual bills or laws in a State-by-State format. The facets of accountability that the laws cover…

The importance of legislative initiatives to improve postsecondary education is discussed, along with mechanisms that legislatures have used to induce change in higher education, and guidelines for action. Structural obstacles to improvements that have confronted most public colleges include lack of clear priorities, fragmented responsibilities,…

As a follow-up to an earlier ECS report on the extent to which states were prepared to implement President Bush's education plan, this report provides an in-depth examination of three major Bush plan initiatives: assessing student performance, motivating and assessing low-performing schools, and providing school-choice options. The report begins…

To help make school districts more accountable without resorting to minimum competency testing, the Minnesota legislature in 1976 passed a law requiring the state's 434 districts to prepare annual planning and evaluation reports (PERs). The PER law obliges districts to develop educational policies and review them annually; create an instructional…