As the Race-to-the-Top Assessment Consortia develop their assessments, they will need to develop shared accommodations policies to ensure that their tests are used in consistent ways across the participating states. Developing a common set of accommodations policies will require that Consortium members recognize the divergent viewpoints that…

The most sweeping federal education law in decades, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, requires states to administer standardized exams and to punish schools that do not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the fraction of students passing these exams. While the literature on school accountability is well-established, there exists no…

This publication is a "collection" of three separate manuscripts: (1) "A Paradigm Shift in Preparing Instructional Leaders" (published in December 2010); (2) "Transitions" (an introduction to the "Revisited manuscript"); and (3) "A Paradigm Shift in Preparing Instructional Leaders Revisited"…

As the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law moves through the reauthorization process, it is important to understand the basic performance impacts of its central structure of accountability. In this paper, I examine the effects of failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under NCLB on subsequent student math and reading performance at the school…

The article presents results of the evaluation of the GLOBE program (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) in the Czech Republic. The evaluation explores the implementation of the program in schools and its impact on research skills. Four hundred and sixty six pupils, aged 13, from 28 different schools participated in the…

This guide describes the four types of loans offered by the Direct Loan Program[SM]: (1) Direct Subsidized Loans; (2) Direct Unsubsidized Loans; (3) Direct PLUS Loans; and (4) Direct Consolidation Loans. Among the topics covered in the guide are: Use of Your Loan Money, The Master Promissory Note, How Your Loans Will Be Disbursed (Paid Out),…

Many families rely on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded school lunch and breakfast programs to make the family's food budget stretch, improving their food security throughout the school year. These programs feed about 31 million students annually. During the summer where schools are not in session, food security decreases. The USDA…

For community college students, the federal Pell Grant remains by far the most important student aid program. The U.S. Department of education now projects that 8.74 million students will receive Pell Grants in the 2011-12 award year, with approximately one-third of them attending community colleges--nearly 3 million students. As such, the Pell…

The Obama administration's proposal to revamp the signature yardstick used to measure schools' progress under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is being seen as a bold step toward revising a key feature of the law, even as questions loom about how a new system would work. Under the plan, adequate yearly progress (AYP)--the…

Media scholars have long recognized the interaction between the medium that conveys the information and the information that is conveyed. This study examined the relative impact of different low- and high-tech instructional mediums (e.g., flashcards and the iTouch) on the acquisition of general education content-referenced sight words and…

This ethnographic case study investigated second year college students who participated in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program at a technical college in northeastern Pennsylvania. In order to understand how learners stayed motivated in a college setting, I selected participants who were in their second year of the TAA program. A total of…

The purpose of this study is to identify the many challenges currently faced by traditional teacher education programs and to identify what they can do to survive and succeed. This phenomenological study is the result of the Investigator's journey as the longest serving member of a state's teacher education association and his involvement in state…

California's Academic Performance Index (API) is the state's main accountability metric. Authorized by the Legislature in 1999, around the time California was implementing rigorous new standards in math, science, social studies, and English language arts, the API relies heavily on the results of standardized tests designed to align with those…

Formerly excluded from measures of educational performance, students with disabilities (SWDs) are now explicitly recognized in federal and state accountability systems. At the national level, the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) laid the foundation for accountability of SWDs by requiring states to include…

In recent decades, much attention has been focused on student achievement in the United States. Many policy initiatives have been attempted in an effort to bolster achievement, including increasing school revenue, decreasing class size, expanding early childhood programs, and introducing vouchers and charter schools, to name a few, but not all of…