This study was conducted to provide further information regarding factors associated with educational evaluation, using a qualitative approach. Fifty-five interviews were carried out with school principals. The results of the present study supported the notion that the qualitative methods could provide information that quantitative procedures…

From cherry-picked data through tortured statistics, Mr. Bracey sets the story straight on the past year in education.

Library media specialists can help achieve several goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. Of particular importance is helping students to achieve high test scores, as this would influence the level of federal funds meted out to schools.

An analysis of recent publications in the field of school effectiveness studies shows that virtually no contributions have been made in that knowledge domain with respect to the effectiveness of Christian schools. To address this shortcoming--while keeping the undesirability of a package approach to Christian education in mind--a…

Systematic procedures for quality assurance and improvement through evaluation have been in place in Western Europe since the mid 1980s and in Germany since the mid 1990s. As studies in Europe and beyond show that multi-stage evaluation procedures as the main quality assurance instrument for evaluation of teaching and learning in higher education…

The present study investigated the correlation and predictive value of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) procedures for performance on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program's (MEAP) fourth grade reading assessment. A 1-minute oral reading sample was used to predict MEAP performance 2 weeks later. A positive correlation was established…

The success of standards-based education systems depends on 2 elements: strong standards, and assessments that measure what the standards expect. States that have or adopt test-based accountability programs claim that their tests are aligned to their standards. But there has been up to now no independent methodology for checking alignment. This…

Discusses the development of a survey instrument designed to measure the impact of service learning on student development, specifically students' sense of caring, ethics, connectedness, collaboration, diversity, reciprocity, and self-efficacy. The authors invite other service-learning practitioners to utilize the instrument, and if they wish, to…

Evaluates the outcomes of the service-learning component in two undergraduate courses in which some students identified their own service-learning sites and others chose one of three pre-arranged sites. Concludes that all students experienced a greater understanding of the course content and their roles as citizens, but students who arranged their…

Given the new European institutional environment for education and training, policy and methodology for evaluation have become closely interwoven and stakes have been raised. This emerging situation calls for a robust reappraisal of existing comparative evaluation data and systems in the light of the perceived needs of European countries and of…

Every other year, comprehensive school health education programs and policies are assessed nationally using the School Health Education Profile (SHEP) survey (Grunbaum et al., 1998). The data are collected in modules that are completed by different stakeholders within the school system. As part of a cooperative agreement with the Centers for…

"High stakes testing" is to be understood as testing with serious consequences for students, their teachers and their educational institutions. It plays a central role in holding teachers and educational institutions to account. In a recent article Randall Curren seeks to refute a number of philosophical arguments developed in my "The Limits of…

Three principal factors supported our decision to participate in the piloting of the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS). First, participants needed to have or secure electronic student assessment data. As a very data-oriented school district, we had over five years of longitudinal student data stored electronically for use in our…

The question of how to estimate school and teacher contributions to student learning is fundamental to educational policy and practice, and the three thoughtful articles in this issue represent a major advance. The current level of public confusion about these issues is so severe and the consequences for schooling so great that it is a big relief…

This case study examines the applicability of 1994 standards, offered by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, to evaluations conducted in international contexts. The work is undertaken in response to an open invitation from the Joint Committee in its 1994 publication. The article addresses two purposes. First, it asks…