The present study investigated the correlation and predictive value of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) procedures for performance on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program's (MEAP) fourth grade reading assessment. A 1-minute oral reading sample was used to predict MEAP performance 2 weeks later. A positive correlation was established…

The success of standards-based education systems depends on 2 elements: strong standards, and assessments that measure what the standards expect. States that have or adopt test-based accountability programs claim that their tests are aligned to their standards. But there has been up to now no independent methodology for checking alignment. This…

Discusses the development of a survey instrument designed to measure the impact of service learning on student development, specifically students' sense of caring, ethics, connectedness, collaboration, diversity, reciprocity, and self-efficacy. The authors invite other service-learning practitioners to utilize the instrument, and if they wish, to…

Evaluates the outcomes of the service-learning component in two undergraduate courses in which some students identified their own service-learning sites and others chose one of three pre-arranged sites. Concludes that all students experienced a greater understanding of the course content and their roles as citizens, but students who arranged their…

Given the new European institutional environment for education and training, policy and methodology for evaluation have become closely interwoven and stakes have been raised. This emerging situation calls for a robust reappraisal of existing comparative evaluation data and systems in the light of the perceived needs of European countries and of…

Every other year, comprehensive school health education programs and policies are assessed nationally using the School Health Education Profile (SHEP) survey (Grunbaum et al., 1998). The data are collected in modules that are completed by different stakeholders within the school system. As part of a cooperative agreement with the Centers for…

"High stakes testing" is to be understood as testing with serious consequences for students, their teachers and their educational institutions. It plays a central role in holding teachers and educational institutions to account. In a recent article Randall Curren seeks to refute a number of philosophical arguments developed in my "The Limits of…

Three principal factors supported our decision to participate in the piloting of the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS). First, participants needed to have or secure electronic student assessment data. As a very data-oriented school district, we had over five years of longitudinal student data stored electronically for use in our…

The question of how to estimate school and teacher contributions to student learning is fundamental to educational policy and practice, and the three thoughtful articles in this issue represent a major advance. The current level of public confusion about these issues is so severe and the consequences for schooling so great that it is a big relief…

This case study examines the applicability of 1994 standards, offered by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, to evaluations conducted in international contexts. The work is undertaken in response to an open invitation from the Joint Committee in its 1994 publication. The article addresses two purposes. First, it asks…

Over the decades, those in education have waged a noble struggle in an attempt to achieve the respect and dignity worthy of their profession. Their social value, their worthiness, and the critical nature of their success, it can be argued, are every bit as significant as that of practicing medicine. Research consistently demonstrates the positive…

Recent advances in electronic data collection have opened broad new possibilities for educational assessment. Potentially significant savings in time, money, and effort make Web-based and e-mail-based surveys more and more attractive as alternatives to mail surveys and face-to-face interviews. Yet, as with any major change, questions and obstacles…

Response-to-intervention (RTI) technical adequacy standards should follow from model purpose, procedural specification, procedural adherence, outcome determination, and subsequent plans. Therefore, RTI raises atypical measurement questions for practice, and, for this reason, it may require hybridized technical adequacy methods. Due to RTI model…

The island of Ireland is the most westerly point of the European Union, and is divided into the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland and the 6 counties of Northern Ireland, the latter under the governance of the United Kingdom. This article presents a brief history and a brief description of the economic profile of the Republic of Ireland. This…

This study represents a systematic replication of a previous intervention which took place in schools in Mangere from 2003 to 2005. (McNaughton, MacDonald, Maituanai-Toloa, Lai, & Farry, 2006). The contexts and theoretical rationale are the same for the present study as those for the original Mangere study. The authors have repeated that…