Amidst unprecedented challenges in the era of COVID-19, using assessment to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education institutions is more important than ever. Striking the delicate balance between compassionately understanding colleagues' capacity to fulfill their duties during a crisis and maintaining high expectations…

This brief is part of a four-part series examining the past, present, and future of modern school accountability systems. With the dual forces of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national call to action on racial inequity, the question of how we should measure and hold schools accountable for the impact they have on students is more urgent than ever.…

This report identifies the statutory requirements, including programs, reports, evaluations, and accountability measures, impacted by the assessment waiver and describes how each statutory requirement is impacted by the assessment waiver. It discusses the data which the State Board has not collected or will not collect because of the assessment…

Objectives: This research brief explores the literature addressing quality in undergraduate education to identify what previous research has said about quality and to offer future directions for research on quality in undergraduate education. Method: We conducted a scoping review to provide a broad overview of existing research. Using targeted…

This article critically reviews how diagnostic models have been conceptualized and how they compare to other approaches used in educational measurement. In particular, certain assumptions that have been taken for granted and used as defining characteristics of diagnostic models are reviewed and it is questioned whether these assumptions are the…

As assessment work matures, campuses increasingly focus on how to develop structures and processes that facilitate the use of assessment findings and identify opportunities for improvement of curricula, teaching, and student learning.

The authors describe challenges of following professional standards for educational achievement testing due to the complexity of gathering appropriate evidence to support demanding test interpretation and use. Validity evidence has been found to be low for some individual testing standards, leading to the possibility of faulty or impoverished test…

Designs combining different types of data are increasingly used in educational evaluation, to provide both evidence of impact and an explanation of the processes by which impacts are created. Logic models are visual representations of how an intervention leads via a set of steps from resources and inputs to outputs and then sets of outcomes. Their…

To understand standards alignment in the context of curriculum and assessment, it is important to understand what standards are, what curriculum consists of, what assessments are, and what alignment means in the context of curriculum and assessment. Standards indicate what students should know and be able to do within a particular content area,…

This article is a review and thematic analysis of the 2014 National Core Arts Standards (NCAS). Historically, there exists a gap between the arts and assessment-based educational practices. Thematic analysis of the NCAS reveals a policy striving to bridge the gap between the way arts educators envision arts in schools, and the current reality of…

The edTPA is becoming an increasingly popular assessment in educator preparation programs across the United States. While there are many official support documents available for navigating the completion of the edTPA, there is abundant discussion and collaboration between those who work with teacher candidates to find strategies for successful…

Three years after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Patrick McGuinn reviews how the U.S. Department of Education has managed the approval process for state accountability plans, how state plans are shaping up as a result of their newfound flexibility, and what implementation challenges have emerged. States have required…

The ongoing attempts to measure educational quality, to hold schools responsible for their performance against these measures, and to use the resulting data to design improvement initiatives have yet to yield the promised results. A universal definition of "good education" seems to elude our grasp. Despite broad public support for…

Over the past decade, a growing number of institutions of higher education have added leadership studies as a formal academic program of study. In many instances, however, students have not been included as partners or stakeholders in the design and delivery of leadership education, and student motivation and retention have subsequently suffered…

This article is the introduction to the special issue about Evaluation, Educational Policy Reforms, and Their Implications for Arts Education. A summary of all the articles comprised in the special issue is reported, mainly featured, on the one hand, by a discussion about how the education policy reforms shape a particular approach to evaluation…