The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) holds states, districts, and schools accountable for student achievement. NCLB requires regular assessments to mark progress and highlight weaknesses in core academic subjects. Assessment results must be reported in the aggregate and disaggregated by individual subgroups of students. Research shows that…

This report is the fifth analysis of state reports to examine the extent to which states publicly report information about students with disabilities in statewide assessments. The report describes statewide testing systems and evaluates whether these systems include participation and performance information for students with disabilities. It finds…

Schools are realizing that carefully collected and analyzed data represent the key to educational improvement. This digest outlines the most useful types of data to drive the school-improvement process, steps that must be taken to collect and analyze data, the role of administrators in guiding the data-driven reform process, and results that can…

This guide provides users of the National Household Education Survey (NHES) data with suggested techniques for working with the data files. Special attention is paid to topics that will help users avoid the most commonly made mistakes in working with NHES data. The guide is meant to be an introduction and an overview, and not a substitute for the…

The 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96) was a random digit dial telephone survey of households that was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat, Inc. The NHES:96 included two topical survey components, "Parent and Family Involvement in Education," (PFI) which collected data about…

Language teachers with little or no experience in conducting research are guided through the process of deciding what kind of classroom research to undertake, and how to organize and implement it. In question-and-answer format, four types of research are defined and explained separately: action, survey, correlational, and experimental studies. For…

These two newsletters for 1997 highlight the following topics and issues. The July issue reports that community and technical colleges are moving to performance funding as a result of the 1997 Washington state legislature including a performance evaluation proviso for all public higher education institutions. Another article is featured on data…

This brief paper defines participatory action research, reviews the literature on its use, and offers examples of how researchers and practitioners are applying principles of participatory action research data to select effective practices and support change and innovation in schools. Generation of data-based strategies in natural environments is…

This study examined the continued relevance and adequacy of the Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report (E&S Survey) as a tool for enforcing civil rights laws in education, monitoring quality of access to learning opportunities, and research on other current issues of educational policy and practice. The Committee on…

A 1994 report, "Quality Profile for SASS, Aspects of the Quality of Data in the Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS)," presented and summarized the available information about the quality of the data from the five surveys that made up the SASS in its first two rounds of data collection (1987-1988 and 1990-1991). This report updates the…

This paper reviews and evaluates methods for conducting job analysis. The paper begins with a discussion of the purpose of licensure and certification and the dimensions of job analysis. The following four dimensions along which job analysis methods vary are discussed: types of job descriptors; sources of information; data collection methods; and…

This book is an easy-to-use guide for school boards in how to use data intelligently when evaluating student achievement, educational improvement, and school accountability. Its purpose is to encourage school boards to use data as a basis for their decision-making instead of speculation, perception, or limited observation. Board members can learn…

Differentiating between time-series design and time-series analysis, examines design considerations and reanalyzes data previously reported by Mayer and Kozlow in this journal. The current analysis supports the analysis performed by Mayer and Kozlow but puts the results on a somewhat firmer statistical footing. (Author/JN)

This investigation into the "reasonable" expectations for post high school employment and education effects of secondary school vocational education makes use of follow-up data to focus on (1) the process of measuring the difference made by secondary vocational education and (2) the likely difference made in Minnesota. (Author)

Describes an easy-to-use, inexpensive field trip/laboratory exercise designed to delineate the home ranges of small animals. Students participate in the design of the exercise; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; and the presentation of results. Contains 19 references. (DDR)