This document presents findings of the Assessment of School-Based Management Study, which identified the conditions in schools that promote high performance through school-based management (SBM). The study's conceptual framework was based on Edward E. Lawler's (1986) model. The high-involvement framework posits that four resources must spread…

Cultural and national history have profoundly modeled Greek society and continue to play a vital role in Greek policy and in cultural and social life. This handbook provides a brief overview of secondary education in Greece. The first part describes the country's societal, historical, and political background; educational history and current…

The development of a scoring tool to be used with alternative and authentic assessment strategies is discussed, describing the parts of such a tool and the development process. The design is based on the Innovation Configuration (IC) process of the Concerns-Based Adoption Model. To begin, components of the test task are identified. Variations that…

Within the past 5 years there has been an international movement to adapt the principles and practices of Total Quality Management work environments to school-restructuring agendas. This paper reports on the development of a model called the Educational Quality System, a benchmark assessment tool for identifying the essential elements of quality…

This handbook offers observations from the superintendent's viewpoint about the evaluation responsibilities of school board members and school boards. The handbook describes important features of the evaluation role of school boards and offers a detailed description of what the board should evaluate within the context of the districts--who the…

The reform of mathematics and science teaching and learning in school classrooms has been underway for the past two decades. A review of the literature performed on the ERIC CD ROM system yielded a selected bibliography of 154 items identifying several areas of current activity that are included in research and development projects focused on…

Because public schools do not randomly assign students and teachers across schools (a methodological utopia), multilevel evaluation methods which account for student and school contextual and practice variables in their natural settings provide the most rigorous means for showing empirically what is actually happening in school classrooms.…

This report traces the development of the art program in the Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District and provides an assessment of current practices and procedures in the system. Future plans are delineated for improvement of the art program. The paper is divided into seven sections: (1) mission; (2) context evaluation; (3) input…

There is a strong need to understand, monitor, and enhance educational quality. This paper reports on a project that developed a framework of indicators for monitoring educational quality in Hong Kong primary schools. The framework was developed through various case studies and 2 large surveys of over 200 Hong Kong primary schools (involving over…

For the past 12 or so years, policymakers, educators, and community members have been working to improve student achievement by reforming the public education system. However, progress has been slower than desired, and questions persist about which reforms return the most benefit for the money, time, and effort invested. This report summarizes…

The Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is one of the 16 subject-oriented clearinghouses operated by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. In its early years, ERIC was primarily an archive of education literature, but is has evolved into a…

There are many resources available for supporting Title I or school-improvement processes, but many of them present a disjointed picture of the complicated process. This guidebook was developed to provide a coherent framework for planning educational improvement and can be used to support any school or district staff working to improve an…

The Concept Attainment Model is described as a teaching approach that helps students develop skills for inductive and deductive thinking while learning subject matter in any field in a constructive and meaningful way. A definition and overview of the model are presented, with guidelines for using the concept-attainment approach to design and…

The realities of inappropriate and sometimes unethical testing practices must be confronted to make sure that current assessments are as reliable and effective as possible. While this paper does not attempt to provide practical guidelines for ethical and appropriate testing, it does draw a picture of appropriate and ethical testing practices. All…

There is widespread agreement that theories of teaching, learning, and assessment should be consistent with a certain theory of learning, whether it be constructivism or some other theory. This paper describes the creation and development of the working draft of the assessment standards for school mathematics published by the National Council of…