Commissioner's Rules Concerning the State Plan for Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) states that all school districts that are required to provide bilingual education and/or English as a second language (ESL) programs establish and operate a Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC). The LPACs are charged with reviewing all…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and public pressure to prepare students for the twenty-first century has put increasing demands on schools to improve student performance. This action research study examined the efforts of an elementary school principal and her third and fourth grade teachers to improve students' performance in math. The…

Many students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are eligible for a signing accommodation for state and other standardized tests. The signing accommodation, however, presents several challenges for testing programs that attempt to administer tests under standardized conditions. One potential solution for many of these challenges is the use of…

This article presents a model that instructional leaders can use to engage in a change process that fosters effective instructional change in school districts and individual school buildings, specifically middle schools and alternative middle schools. The authors describe four dimensions of leadership and explain how each dimension informs…

It's getting to be that one needs a scorecard to identify district administrators by their titles. To keep up with changing needs, many districts are creating new management positions or adding new responsibilities to old ones and then coming up with titles that sometimes only hint at what they are about. In addition to 2008-2009 salary survey…

The authors encourage caution in the implementation of Response to Intervention and dispel the false hopes that Response to Intervention will solve many of education's challenges. Outlined in this article are the reasons why Response to Intervention cannot be the solution to the identification of students for special education, why it can't…

The Obama administration will waive cornerstone requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, including the 2014 deadline for all students to be proficient in math and reading/language arts, and will give states the freedom to set their own student-achievement goals and design their own interventions for failing schools. In exchange for that…

The education of students with disabilities (SWD) has undergone some significant changes within the public education system since the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Special education legislation has historically focused on equal access for all students. Too much time has been…

The concept of "teacher quality" has undergone a profound transformation in the last decade. Through the late 1990s, most policymakers assumed that educator effectiveness was immeasurable and that our only hopes to increase it were tied to classroom experience and academic credentials. Yet since 2001, through a series of notable research…

Major federal education initiatives, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, have highlighted the importance of teacher quality in improving student achievement. The federal government has committed significant funding and resources to professional development programs for teachers through Title II of the Act and other initiatives. There…

Before awarding waivers from core tenets of the No Child Left Behind Act to 11 states, the U.S. Department of Education ordered changes to address a significant weakness in most states' proposals: how they would hold schools accountable for groups of students deemed academically at risk, particularly those in special education or learning English.…

This case study of one middle school focuses on improving teachers' skills in data-driven decision making through analysis of student work and their own professional practice. The expectation that schools will make adequate yearly progress has pushed evaluation practice down to the teacher level, where teachers are asked to analyze and…

What is the best use for tests? Testing should provide insight and information to educators and students. The primary purpose of testing is to inform teaching and learning. Yet, for too many schools, testing has been perverted to accommodate only measurement. Lesson plans are built around helping students pass the tests. In many instances, schools…

Educators, students, and families face many challenges in responding to the testing mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), including providing students with disabilities with individualized, approved, valid, effective, and acceptable testing…

The No Child Left Behind Act has made a great impact on states' policies in assessing English language learner (ELL) students. The legislation requires states to develop or adopt sound assessments to validly measure the ELL students' English language proficiency (ELP). Although states have moved rapidly to meet these requirements, they face…