This document describes the methodology used to carry out the Assessment of School-Based Management Study, which identified the conditions in schools that promote high performance through school-based management (SBM). The 3-year project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), began…

This paper reports on the results of an initiative taken by Paterson Public Schools (New Jersey), an urban school district with approximately 24,000 students, to restructure its Title I elementary program. The effort involves engaging Title I and regular classroom teachers in a collaborative teaching model as an alternative to the traditional…

Schools represent a major social investment in Australia. Assessment of Australian schools' performance depends on how one defines what they should be doing and on how well they can be expected to do it. In the official account, schools are of "high quality and modest cost" when compared with their own past and other school systems. An…

This paper describes how the Northridge campus of California State University incorporated academic program assessment into its regular practices using opinion leaders, diffusion methods, and collaboration between faculty and administration. Elements of the assessment program included: (1) appointment of an assessment coordinator; (2) high…

This digest presents a list of recommendations for writing multiple-choice test items, based on psychometrics and logical deduction. Questions should ask more than mere knowledge of facts and should not contain superfluous information as an introduction to the question. Each question should focus on some specific aspect of the course, and the item…

State-level policymakers, local-level administrators, and teachers alike are interested in how standards actually apply to classroom learning. This paper presents answers to questions that policymakers and educators should consider before implementing standards-based education at the local level. The following questions help sort through the…

It is only a slight exaggeration to describe the test theory that dominates educational measurement today as the application of twentieth-century statistics to nineteenth-century psychology. Sophisticated estimation procedures, new techniques for missing-data problems, and theoretical advances into latent-variable modeling have appeared--all…

This document tabulates extensive and detailed information about the assessment programs of each state. It is the third edition of the database and remains the single best source for information about the student assessments that states conduct. The database is compiled from a survey completed by state directors of assessment. The first section of…

The Colorado Education Goals Panel, appointed by Governor Roy Romer in 1995 to meet the challenge of raising student achievement levels, is a 40-member planning group co-chaired by the Governor and Commissioner Bill Randall. The group includes parents, educators, business and civic leaders, policymakers, and administrators from higher education.…

This document presents summaries of 28 national data collection programs, to document the amount and nature of information on individuals with disabilities included in the programs. For each program, information provided includes sponsor, purpose, collection cycle, data sources, collection methods, study design, variable domains,…

This book offers a step-by-step, systematic process for designing high-performance learning organizations. The process helps administrators develop proposals for redesigning school districts that are tailored to the district's environment, work system, and social system. Chapter 1 describes the characteristics of high-performing organizations, and…

The aim of this study was to construct and validate a biographical inventory to measure personality traits that are predictive of leadership. The experimental inventory, consisting of tentative scales for Dominance, Emotional Stability, Need for Achievement, Self-Confidence, and Sociability, was administered to 642 incoming midshipmen at the Naval…

The curriculum-management audit was developed to provide school districts with a tool for making districtwide improvements. The audit can be used to help districts improve quality control over their instructional programs. This book offers a step-by-step guide to school improvement with a focus on conducting an internal audit. The first four…

The requirement that schools in England and Wales assess their students, at age seven, in English and mathematics has created a demand for an assessment of students at their entry to statutory schooling. This paper reports on the development and standardization of a test of mathematical concepts for students aged four and over (four plus) as they…

Over the past few decades, educators have witnessed a slowly growing but significant change in the way they approach their work. Professional curriculum debate now tends to be over procedures, not over what counts as legitimate knowledge. This book aims to reintegrate the ethical, personal, and political into curriculum discourse and decision…