Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical comparison of two measures of school success -- a value-added assessment system and the federally-mandated system of adequate yearly progress (AYP) -- to identify highly effective urban schools in the USA and to explore the predictive relationship between evidence-based decision-making…

Achieve, through support from the Noyce Foundation, examined ten sets of international standards with the intent of informing the development of both the conceptual framework and Next Generation Science Standards. Achieve selected countries based on their strong performance on international assessments and/or their economic, political, or cultural…

The purpose of the current study was to benchmark a broad range of work practices and outcomes in Australian universities against other industries. Past research suggests occupational stress experienced by academic staff is worse than experienced by employees in other industries. However, no other practices or outcomes can be compared confidently.…

This report presents a snapshot of the academic performance of children on guardianship/custody orders from 2003 to 2006, and changes in their performance over this period. This concludes a two-stage pilot study, the first of its kind in Australia. A considerable proportion of children on guardianship/custody orders are not meeting the national…

This report is the ACT annual report on the progress of U.S. high school graduates relative to college readiness. This year's report shows that 64% of students in the 2016 US graduating class took the ACT test, up from 59% in 2015 and 49% in 2011. The increased number of test takers over the past several years enhances the breadth and depth of the…

This paper is part of a stream of research dealing with customer and market orientation within higher education, specifically within business schools holding membership in AACSB-International. A market orientation strategy leading to a customer and market-oriented organizational culture is based upon the acceptance and adoption of the marketing…

Science and agriculture professional organizations have argued for agricultural literacy as a goal for K-12 public education. Due to the complexity of our modern agri-food system, with social, economic, and environmental concerns embedded, an agriculturally literate society is needed for informed decision making, democratic participation, and…

Due to the challenges of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, many schools and school districts are implementing after-school tutoring programs to provide students additional instruction to score proficient or better in reading and mathematics. This doctoral study analyzed the effects of the ABC Middle School Educational Assistance Program…

"The Eight-Step Process" is a continuous improvement model that focuses on collaboration by disaggregating and analyzing data, developing a common instructional calendar, assessing mastery with common formative and summative assessments, building in time daily for interventions and enrichments for each student on the standards being…

User-centered evaluations of information systems often focus on the usability of the system rather its usefulness. This study examined how a using an interactive knowledge-domain visualization (KDV) system affected users' understanding of a domain. Interactive KDVs allow users to create graphical representations of domains that depict important…

The purpose of this study was to classify higher education institutions according to institutional performance rather than predetermined benchmarks. Institutional performance was defined as research performance and classified using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, a statistical method that classifies objects according to specified classification…

In recent years, Bahrain has taken serious actions to diversify its sources of income and solve major national problems such as unemployment. Through this process it discovered that one of the main factors for its economic problems was the quality of higher education on offer. This led to the creation of a national Quality Assurance Authority that…

As the largest international study ever taken in history, the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been held as a benchmark to measure U.S. student performance in the global context. In-depth analyses of the TIMSS project are conducted in this study to examine key issues of the comparative investigation: (1) item flaws in mathematics…

Compared to traditional classification methods, developing a peer group using the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS) data allows institutions to add comparative dimensions, to update the peer group, and to track changes at peer institutions over time. Peer selection and…

The "Condition of College & Career Readiness 2014" is ACT's annual report on the progress of the graduating class relative to college readiness. This report provides a national snapshot of academic performance among African American students in the high school graduating class who took the ACT® college readiness assessment and…