Alignment of content standards, performance standards, and assessments is crucial. This guide contains information to assist states and districts in aligning their assessment systems to their content and performance standards. It includes a review of current literature, both published and fugitive. The research is woven together with a few basic…

This book takes readers through the often confusing landscape of standardized testing and explains what tests are and what they are not. The book discusses how to interpret test scores, different types of standardized tests, and specific standardized tests. This revised edition also contains discussions of the Third International Mathematics and…

An increasingly popular approach to addressing child care needs of Americas families is to give state tax credits to employers that provide child care assistance to their employees, thereby permitting the employer to offset part of its child care expenditures against its state tax liability. Currently, 28 states have such tax credits, and a…

This document analyzes a study done by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC), which examined transfer rates in the VCCS. The document provides definitions for transfer rate, academic performance, and completion rate as they are used in the study. The study answers the following questions: (1) which pool of students were used in the…

This document is the fifth in a series of biennial reports on appropriations for developmental education in Texas. Overall general revenue appropriations for developmental education increased from $182.8 million in the 2000-2001 biennium to $184.8 million in the 2002-2003 biennium. Appropriations in the 1998-1999 biennium were $38.5 million. From…

This report poses four important questions for states about their students' readiness and answers these questions using data from ACT and College Board reports. Clarifying the issues of college readiness that confront member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) should provide states with tools for current and future policy…

This paper makes the case that mandated tests, such as those administered through a state's accountability system, can best meet the goal of curricular reform by making their domains of learning targets transparent to users. Test maps are proposed as an effective device to accomplish that goal. A test map describes the content of the test and how…

This document offers three articles reporting research and practice on the use of paraeducators to provide support to students with disabilities and their teachers. Emphasis is on research funded by the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. The first article notes the increasing use of paraeducators to provide…

This report card contains information on the status of public education in Alaska. Data are organized around the four key elements of the Alaska Quality Schools Initiative: (1) high standards and assessments; (2) quality professional standards; (3) family, school, business, and community networks; and (4) school excellence standards. A statewide…

This project report presents findings on the implementation and progress of the On the Right Track program during the second year of a four-year grant period. The project, which began in July of 1997, is designed to assess and document the magnitude, severity, and secondary conditions of disabilities for persons with disabilities in Texas, to…

Noting that many children in the United States are not well nourished despite the recent economic boom, the state of Maryland began the Maryland Meals for Achievement (MMFA) program, a demonstration project to see if providing a classroom breakfast free to all students can improve student nutrition and academic achievement. This interim report…

This paper describes the Kentucky Department of Education's (KDE's) multi-faceted approach to professional development and provides evidence for its impact on schools' achievement of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) goals. Data are drawn from the exemplary case study component of a larger research project. Many Kentucky school districts…

As part of the Assessing the New Federalism project, this report describes the child care assistance system in place just before the implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) and provides some early indications of how states will use the increased freedom of the Child Care and…

This document brings together a series of short papers that examine 20 educational issues affecting all 50 states in the U.S. The following issues are addressed: (1) accountability, with an emphasis on performance-based accountability systems and state-performance indicators; (2) alternative schools for disruptive students; (3)assessment,…

Using the same approach of family involvement and empowerment that has guided Head Start, Early Head Start offers its services to pregnant women and children, birth to age 3. One of the characteristics that differentiates Early Head Start from traditional Head Start is the mandate to offer full-day, full-year services to infants and toddlers. The…