Today, state education agencies (SEAs) and their leaders face unprecedented demands. What was once a low-profile job of managing federal aid, providing curricular guidance, and ensuring compliance with various legal obligations is now a far more visible and politically fraught task. The new roles required of state education agencies due to the No…

Assessment has long been at the center of education policy debates, and for good reason. The goal of schooling is to maximize student learning, and assessments provide a picture of what students know and are able to do. Assessments also have a strong influence on what goes on in classrooms. The United States is now poised to make the most dramatic…

The research reported in this paper is focused directly on assessing the validity of the "Teaching Knowledge about Reading and Reading Practices" (TKRRP) assessment. Following the recommendations of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (APA/AERA, 1999), the authors see validation as a process of constructing an…

Under the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind legislation, screening for reading risk has become routine in kindergarten. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of the timing of kindergarten assessment and the type of support provided to teachers to translate assessment results to instruction. Sixty-two schools…

The "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA"), as amended by the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" inaugurated important changes in assessment and accountability for English Learner (EL) students. Specifically, Title III of the law required states to develop or adopt English-language proficiency (ELP)…

This study explored American high school and middle school science teachers' attitudes toward the use of standardized testing for accountability purposes, their justification for the attitudes they hold and the impact of standardized testing on their instructional and assessment practices. A total of 161 science teachers participated in the study.…

Assessment of students with disabilities is a critical component of special education. In addition to the complexity of assessment (e.g., high-stakes assessments, progress monitoring, diagnosis), the issue is complicated further by the use of acronyms. This can make both explaining and understanding important information related to students very…

Back in 2008, it wasn't clear just where candidate Barack Obama's heart lay when it came to the big issues facing schools. Although Mr. Obama had been a community organizer, a law professor, and a state legislator, the junior U.S. senator from Illinois didn't have a long record on K-12 issues, and he rarely spoke about them in his presidential…

In 2007, the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute collaborated on "The Proficiency Illusion," a study that illustrated the issues created by having each state set its own standards for what constitutes student proficiency for reading and mathematics tests, while holding all states to the same…

Research and professional leadership standards identify specific ways in which principals directly influence school organization and community relationships and exert less direct, but critically important, influence on teaching quality and instructional effectiveness. Principals' roles are central to supporting and supervising teachers'…

Some form of a short interrupted time series (ITS) is often used to evaluate state and national programs. An ITS design with a single treatment group assumes that the pretest functional form can be validly estimated and extrapolated into the postintervention period where it provides a valid counterfactual. This assumption is problematic. Ambiguous…

The myth equating high-stakes testing with rigor and difficulty is one that can be debunked given the empirical work that has been conducted in this area. To completely debunk this myth in gifted education, the field must centralize efforts. Educators need to consider alternatives to the current system of assessment and the delivery of…

As the recession crimps education budgets, states are beginning to pare the number of standardized tests they give, particularly those that no longer factor into state or federal accountability decisions. At the district level, though, it's a different story. Despite pressure not to cut staffing and programs, many districts are preserving local…

This study focuses on pre-service teachers' perspectives regarding how the process of completing the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) affected them academically, professionally, and personally. Two cohorts participated in this year-two study. Pre-service teachers' perspectives were acquired using a survey instrument comprised…

The purpose of this mixed methods research is to examine teachers' perspectives on the response to intervention (RTI) framework and its implementation in Michigan and Texas schools. Both states have been leaders in literacy, increasing preservice and in-service teacher certification standards and developing similar batteries for assessing literacy…