The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education developed draft standards for Professional Development Schools (PDSs). This article discusses the PDS concept and origins, examines why PDSs are important, and argues for standards as a means of supporting the PDS work and holding PDSs accountable for multiple results. The draft standards…

The National Assessment Governing Board and the National Center for Education Statistics sponsored a Joint Conference on Standard Setting for Large-Scale Assessments to provide a forum for technical and policy issues relevant to setting standards at local, state, and national levels. Volume I contains an executive summary of the conference and…

Based on analyses and recommendations reported in School Improvement Planning: What's Missing?, the present report proposes ways to (a) reorganize school improvement guidance and (b) expand standards and accountability to encompass a component to address barriers to learning and teaching. In doing so, the work highlights the need and a focus for…

In the current climate of accountability in American public education, tests get more attention and carry more importance than ever before. Both state accountability systems and the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) hold schools accountable for whether students pass standardized state tests. NCLB requires that schools and school districts…

In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have received increasing attention from both policymakers and scholars. This article discusses polluters' incentives to reduce their releases. In particular, using data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory, it examines the impacts of conventional…

This article examines major threats to the validity of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the context of rural schools. Although rural students and their schools made significant academic progress in the past on national and state assessments, the current goal of AYP turns out to be highly unrealistic for them unless states set far lower…

Many on both "the left" and "the right" passionately oppose an outcome-based approach to education, although their reasons are different. A focus on results, on what children actually learn and how well they learn it, enables taxpayers to hold educators accountable for results. But this apparent good idea has led to…

Test results and employer complaints indicate that the average high school graduate hasn't learned enough and that he brings that deficit with him to college. As remedy, Chester Finn argues for uniform educational standards and measurements in a transparent reporting system that gives families the information necessary to scrutinize and accept or…

The movement for developing and implementing adult English as a Second Language (ESL) content standards is gaining momentum in the United States as more emphasis is placed on learner outcomes, accountability, and professionalism in the field. Additional research is needed to investigate the impact that adult ESL content standards have on…

Compares two approaches for establishing student achievement standards and expectations for province-wide assessment in Saskatchewan (Canada). The first approach based standards on judges' estimates regarding the percentage of students who should be able to attain desired levels of performance. The second approach required judges to reach a…

The policy statement from the National Education Summit asserts that standard-setting efforts are necessary for educational improvement. Business and public leaders must take steps to implement standards, develop relationships between schools and businesses, report progress to the public, and promote information sharing and technical assistance.…

This volume contains an edited transcript of the Rockefeller Institute's October 29, 2007 symposium (Chicago, IL) entitled "Intergovernmental Approaches to Strengthen K-12 Accountability Systems" as well as a framework paper circulated in preparation for the symposium. The transcript begins with a list of the forty state and federal education…

The accountability testing programs of many states have begun to make extensive use of constructed-response questions and to report test results in terms of percentages of students at various proficiency or performance levels. This paper describes the step-by-step procedures for two standard-setting methods recently used for the New Hampshire…

This paper describes the processes that one school district, the Visalia Unified School District (California), went through in establishing a standards-based assessment and accountability system using multiple methods. First the district's standards-based assessment and accountability system and the methods used to establish it are described, and…

A series of focus group studies conducted by the Public Agenda Foundation explored public reactions to educational standards in 1993. This study revealed broad and spontaneous support for the idea that higher expectations will produce higher achievement. The strong endorsement of higher standards was also a manifestation of the public's concern…