The United States education system depends on legislation and funding at the federal, state and local levels. Public understanding of assessment therefore is important to educational reform in the USA. Educational reformers often invoke assessment information as a reason for reform, typically by citing unacceptable achievement on some measure or…

This report builds on a foundation of knowledge about the academic readiness of the ACT-tested high school graduating class of 2012 as presented in "The Condition of College & Career Readiness" (see ED534761). An important conclusion of the "Condition" report is that far too many high school graduates are not prepared for…

Given growing interest in accountability and outcomes, the North Central Association's Higher Learning Commission developed a new path for accreditation, the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP). The goal is to infuse continuous improvement and quality in the culture of higher education, and to blend traditional accreditation with the…

The purpose of this study was to analyze a prominent alternative education practice in the Commonwealth of Virginia through an analysis of the Virginia Department of Education's Individual Student Alternative Education Plan (ISAEP) program and the alternative education environment it provides. This was a descriptive study using non-experimental…

Since its first assessment in 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has made a unique contribution to our understanding of American education. It is the only national source of information on the educational achievement of U.S. students, and it is the only vehicle by which states can compare the progress of their students…

Grounded in Hallidayan perspectives on academic language, we report on our development of an educative science assessment as one component of the language-rich inquiry science for English-language learners teacher professional learning project for middle school science teachers. The project emphasizes the role of content-area writing to support…

Assessment, accountability, and strategic planning are all processes that are included in accreditation for colleges and universities. For most colleges and universities, starting the reaffirmation process means identifying current assessment practices and reports from academic units and programs. This paper discusses the lessons learned during a…

Educators and policy makers in the United States have relied on tests to measure educational progress for more than 150 years. During the twentieth century, technical advances, such as machines for automatic scoring and computer-based scoring and reporting, have supported states in a growing reliance on standardized tests for statewide…

The Environmental Education and Training Partnership Cultural Diversity Workshops were based on theoretical models and designed to increase individuals' awareness, knowledge, and intentions toward increasing culturally sensitivity. This study reports on the evaluation results from 191 participants. Their responses indicate significant changes in…

The author reports a federal competition that has opened for $350 million in federal money to design new ways of assessing what students learn. Rules for the contest make clear that the government wants to leave behind multiple-choice testing more often in favor of essays, multidisciplinary projects, and other more nuanced measures of achievement.…

This paper reports on an interpretive study in which 25 elementary principals were asked about their assessment knowledge, the use of large-scale assessments in their schools, and principals' perceptions on their roles with respect to large-scale assessments. Principals in this study suggested that the current context of large-scale assessment and…

Quality and standards in higher education is a tricky topic, but one that will not go away. Everyone has a view, but it is rarely informed by fact. The subject is particularly difficult for several reasons. Perhaps the most important of these is the lack of any generally agreed definition of what quality and standards are. In this article, the…

During the 15 years that "Quality in Higher Education" has held a focal position in the field of higher education assessment, the concept of quality has evolved from a debatable and controversial concept to an everyday matter in higher education. The author takes a personal look into the development of the field by first tracking the discursive…

The purpose of this documentary account is twofold. First, we describe two strategic instructional assignments embedded in university courses at a large research institution in the United States that were designed to help teaching candidates move toward mastery. Second, we explicate candidates' performances on the assessments as well as evidence…

The large number of underprepared students entering the nation's two-and four-year colleges and universities has created what Levin and Calcagno (2008) consider a "remediation crisis" (p.181). Despite the recent attainment of high school diplomas, many incoming students are academically unprepared for college-level coursework in reading,…