The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were developed through an unprecedented, state-led initiative that drew on the expertise of teachers, parents, administrators, researchers and content experts from across the country. The Standards define a staircase to college and career readiness, building on the best of previous state standards in English…

GreatSchools.org neatly ranks more than 136,000 traditional public, private, and charter schools nationwide on a scale of 1 to 10, based on state test scores. But what often draws readers are the gossipy insider comments posted by parents, students, and teachers, and the star ratings those commenters contribute. The growth of online school rating…

Two quasi-experimental methods--fixed effects (FE) and virtual control records (VCR)--were used to measure charter schooling in 14 states and two districts. The new VCR method uses all available observable charter student characteristics and prior performance to create a composite comparison record. A head-to-head comparison of the FE and VCR…

Market reforms in education are part of the educational policy landscape in many countries. Central to arguments for market reforms is the idea that competition and choice will spur changes in schools to be more innovative, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes. We define innovation in terms of a practice's relative prevalence in a…

In this article we rethink validation within the complex contexts of high-stakes assessment. We begin by considering the utility of existing models for validation and argue that these models tend to overlook some of the complexities inherent to assessment use, including the multiple interpretations of assessment purposes and the potential…

Using data from New Zealand's National Education Monitoring Project, a light sampling, low stakes performance based national school assessment program, reading self-efficacy, reading enjoyment, and reading achievement were examined in samples of 8 and 12 year old children. Sample sizes were n = 480 for each group. While reading achievement…

Using Singapore as an example, we argue that schools need to equip and encourage teachers to adopt authentic assessment in teaching and learning so as to develop the students' higher-order thinking. The importance of teaching and assessing higher-order thinking in Singapore classrooms is encapsulated in the vision of "Thinking Schools"…

The proper use of psychological tests requires that the measurement instruments have adequate psychometric properties, such as reliability and validity, and that the professionals who use the instruments have the necessary expertise. In this article, we present the first review of tests published in Spain, carried out with an assessment model…

This paper identifies three, overlapping, phases of restructuring of New Zealand's system of vocational education and training (VET). These are the meritocratic, the market and the managed. In very different ways, each phase has been designed to increase the propensity of students from all social backgrounds to participate in VET. This paper…

This article asks whether institutional research could help improve the quality of student engagement by researching at sub-institutional levels such as in courses bridging students from school into higher education. In answer it argues two interacting propositions: one, that student engagement provides useful indicators of quality in higher…

In this study, the researchers examined the five most recent years of data (2003-2004 through 2007-2008) from the Academic Excellence Indicator System of the State of Texas regarding new teachers on elementary school campuses. We examined the extent to which differences were present between elementary school campuses with the highest new teacher…

Educational institutions are considered as main indicator of a nation's competitiveness and the excellence of implementing their goals and objectives increase a nation's sense of competitiveness. Thus, it is important to receive a progress report showing how close the educational institutions are in accomplishing the 21st century visions and…

Analysis of a sample of assessment tasks used in New Zealand first-year clinical and final-year secondary school Biology and Chemistry National Certificate of Educational Achievement summative assessments was conducted to assess whether similarities and differences existed in secondary and tertiary competency discourses. Findings suggested…

Starting in the 1970s, Brazil developed a very complex system of quantitative assessments of education at all levels, making extensive use of statistical information and tests, in an effort to improve and maintain the quality of its education. However, with some exceptions, particularly at the graduate level, Brazilian education standards remain…

Content analysis has been used to conduct curriculum mapping to map the course objectives, course content, and the assessment tasks of 14 compulsory courses, onto the five Subject Learning Objective (SLO) factors of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (DC&I) in a teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The results show that the…