The First Amendment Schools project holds rich lessons in how to change school cultures into "laboratories of democracy"--as well as in how to increase the odds of success for any school reform effort. School reform programs of any sort need to make sure to build in sustainability, to provide ways to spread their lessons beyond the…

Teacher effectiveness has been guided by at least three pieces of national legislation, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, 1965), the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, 2009), also referred to as the Stimulus or Recovery Act. With the expectation that the nation's…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how test-based accountability has influenced school and district practices and explore how states and districts might consider creating expanded systems of measures to address the shortcomings of traditional accountability. It provides research-based guidance for entities that are developing or…

Research shows that an effective teacher is key to student success. But determining what evidence best reflects teacher effectiveness and how this information can be used to improve the quality of teaching are among the significant issues facing public education today. The impetus for meaningful teacher evaluation reform from many sectors set the…

This brief describes the extent to which states required teacher evaluation policies aligned with the Race to the Top (RTT) initiative as of spring 2012. Although teacher evaluation policies appear to be rapidly evolving, documenting policy requirements in the early years of RTT implementation can help inform policymakers about the pace of policy…

The author analyzes the growth and nature of internal evaluation from the 1960s to the present and suggests that internal evaluation has been on the increase because of its perceived importance. Although the 1960s were characterized by a rich intellectual development of evaluation theory and practice, the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s ushered…

From the 1980s to the present, educational accountability in the United States has grown dramatically. Such accountability in U.S. school districts, although driven primarily by external demands, has internal manifestations as well. The chapter traces the historical development of internal evaluation in American school districts, then highlights…

It is well established that teacher quality makes a difference in student learning. Since the implementation of No Child Left Behind in 2002, staffing every classroom with a high-quality teacher has been an official national priority. That goal entails an implicit requirement to assess teacher and teaching quality more rigorously than has been the…

Race to the Top is the latest in a line of federal programs reshaping K-12 education. This article traces the history and goals of Race to the Top, with particular attention paid to the means by which practicing classroom teachers are evaluated and held accountable for student learning as measured by standardized tests. Implications for music…

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004), aligned with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), emphasizes improved student academic outcomes. With this focus on academic outcomes and access to the general curriculum, there is increased pressure for accountability in the education of students with disabilities in general…

Black, Wilson, and Yao have identified a very real tension felt by teachers today that has been created by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in the United States and the National Curriculum Assessment in the United Kingdom. In many schools, formative assessment has either taken a backseat to summative assessment use, or many of the formative assessment…

The field of education in the United States is in a period of unprecedented change. Educators in all disciplines are challenged to understand and respond to the waves of reform sweeping over the national education landscape. Linking these reforms to meaningful outcomes that will produce more rigorous and effective measures of quality and…

In this article, the authors examine the interconnections among education researchers' misconceptions about the quality of the education research literature. Specifically, the authors catalog the sequence of events that, when taken together with a series of contradictory graphs presented by influential scholars in prominent settings, may have…

This inquiry utilizes a sheltered instruction approach to lesson planning with the intention of improving teacher candidates' instruction to English Language Learners (ELLs). In this study a web-based questionnaire and a sheltered instruction lesson plan template were used to facilitate opportunities for teacher candidates to reflect on and…

With the debut of common assessments less than two years away, states and districts are worried about the accountability systems that hinge on those tests. A growing chorus of policy groups is urging more flexibility in how states evaluate teachers, label schools, and enforce other high-stakes consequences during what's likely to be a messy…