The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Improvements Act of 2001 (MCKV), which provides funds to local educational agencies (LEAs), is almost a decade old, yet no evaluations of its academic effectiveness have been reported. Using a systems theory framework, the authors answer the question of whether homeless students in grade 6 from LEAs…

The onset of the standards-based movement in education in the early 1980's, bolstered by the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2002, led many school districts to shift from a culture of regulatory, process-oriented compliance to one that is more results-oriented, primarily based on state-adopted summative assessment targets in…

Assessments labeled as formative have been offered as a means to improve student achievement. But labels can be a powerful way to miscommunicate. For an assessment use to be appropriately labeled "formative," both empirical evidence and reasoned arguments must be offered to support the claim that improvements in student achievement can be linked…

The gold standard in making causal inference on program effects is a randomized trial. Most randomization designs in education randomize classrooms or schools rather than individual students. Such "clustered randomization" designs have one principal drawback: They tend to have limited statistical power or precision. This study aims to…

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…

Visits in the Spring of 1972 to five school districts (Norfolk, Virginia; Texarkana, Arkansas; Gary, Indiana; Gilroy, California; and Grand Rapids, Michigan) that had implemented educational performance contracting programs during the 1970-71 school year are reported. Changes in the content and methods of instruction, measurement and evaluation,…

Takes a critical look at the Assessment of Performance Unit's proposals for monitoring attainment in mathematics. (Editor)

Examines the continuing controversy on test scores and student achievement in New Jersey. (RK)

A new report published by the Manhattan Institute for Education Policy, "The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement: Evidence from Florida's McKay Scholarship Program," attempts to examine the complex issue of how competition introduced through school vouchers affects student outcomes in public schools. The…

InterGeo II, a project of the Commission on Geographical Education (CGE) of the International Geographical Union (IGU), has developed a broadly based, field-trialed testing instrument for making cross-national comparisons of achievement in geography. Field trials of InterGeo II were held in 23 countries. Data were analyzed for national achievement…

Several sets of data are analyzed, all of which demonstrate that estimates of achievement rates can differ dramatically when different time periods are used for an evaluation of a compensatory education program. Specifically, it is found that including the summer months in an evaluation often considerably reduces estimates of achievement and hence…

This document reports the Northern Territory Primary Assessment Program (Australia), which monitors student achievement in reading and mathematics in grades 5 and 7 in urban primary schools and grade 5 to post-primary in Aboriginal schools. The aim of the program is to provide teachers with a set of assessment materials and provide information…

The application of tests in clinical and counseling work, in educational achievement testing, and in personnel selection is discussed. An analysis of the organizations which comprise the testing industry, including the various publishers and developers of tests and also the test scoring organizations, is given. The concept of an assessment system…

The purposes of the project were: (1) to determine if equality of educational opportunity exists for students in grades K-6 in the Rhinelander, Wisconsin, school district; and (2) to develop a model for elementary school program evaluation. Learner achievement of instructional objectives was accepted as the basic indicator of equality of…

The evaluation of the third year of the Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI) mathematics project at the Hall School in Minneapolis (grades 1-6) is discussed, and results for the three years are summarized. The process evaluation during the third year concentrated on three areas: group instructional methods, instructional materials other than…