The broad array of data presented each year in the "KIDS COUNT Data Book" is intended to illuminate the status of America's children and to assess trends in their well-being. By updating the assessment every year, KIDS COUNT provides ongoing benchmarks that can be used to see how states have advanced or regressed over time. Readers can also use…

This article presents questions and answers about ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks. ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum ACT test scores required for students to have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses--English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology. Colleges can use the…

E-learning in the European Higher Education Area has stampeded its way to the foreground of the Quality Assurance (QA) forum, and has become a key issue among quality assurance agencies and institutions in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Because internet-based learning is currently such a relevant topic, there is a dire need for the…

The standards-based reform movement has resulted in the wide-spread use of summative assessments designed to measure students' performance at specific points in time. While many have hoped that these end-of-year tests would provide constructional useful information for educators, they do not. This is not because there is something…

This study estimates pretreatment-posttreatment effect size benchmarks for the treatment of major depression in adults that may be useful in evaluating psychotherapy effectiveness in clinical practice. Treatment efficacy benchmarks for major depression were derived for 3 different types of outcome measures: the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression…

Despite the widespread discussion of organisational learning, there is little scholarly contribution on promoting learning through the practical application of management tools. This is especially true in a complex internal supply chain context of an organisation. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring and analysing the capability of…

Performance benchmarks are proposed to assist undergraduate psychology programs in defining their missions and goals as well as documenting their effectiveness. Experienced academic program reviewers compared their experiences to formulate a developmental framework of attributes of undergraduate programs focusing on activity in 8 domains:…

High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of…

The aim of this article is to argue that the evident exchange of information on performance (and its supply, demand and use) should be regarded as a symptom of a new governmental regime that installs less evident power relations. Educational policy in Flanders (Belgium), and in particular the need for feedback information from the Flemish…

Many factors complicate the education of urban students. Among them have been issues related to population density; racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity; poverty; racism (individual and institutional); and funding levels. Although urban educators have been addressing these issues for decades, placing them under the umbrella of "urban…

In this article, we discuss the development of online courses in higher education in terms of the in- structional quality and economic costs. In our conceptual analysis, we point out problems in developing online courses with sufficient quality due to limited funds being made available for online course development. Moreover, economic costs exist…

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has recently issued Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 (Revised 2007) Business Combinations. The object of this Statement is to improve the relevance, representational faithfulness, and comparability of reported information about a business combination and its effects. This Statement…

The annual collection and publication by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) of college performance indicators has focused attention on what these indicators actually tell and whether they provide a fully comprehensive and meaningful story of what college learners achieve. Since 2005 HMIE has overtly made more holistic…

Women remain outsiders in university leadership and management. The literature indicates that discipline base, career mobility, experience outside academia, selection processes, and gender stereotyping may impact on women becoming senior managers. This article reports on research with current and former Vice-Chancellors, senior managers, and…

High stakes accountability (HSA) reforms were enacted in state after state and federally through the No Child Left Behind law, based on the belief that incentives that have consequences attached are effective ways to motivate educators to improve student performance. Our focus for this article is on school district level responses to HSA reforms…