Schools are increasingly turning towards restorative practices as a pathway to building schools with stronger relationships, justice, and equity. While effectiveness studies are increasing, too little attention is focused on evaluating implementation. This resources is for audiences who evaluate implementation of whole school restorative practices…

States use their accountability systems to identify low-performing schools, which can receive added support and are expected to improve. Alternative schools serve students whose needs are not met in a regular school. They often serve at-risk students who are struggling academically or behaviorally. Given this unique population, the Government…

This research explored the knowledge, skills, and strategies early childhood teachers possess related to implementing curriculum and authentic assessment. Research suggests that early educators rate their knowledge of curriculum and authentic assessment and their implementation of both as excellent. Despite these self-reported, high levels of…

The goals of our study were to determine the predictive value and usability of an audience response system (ARS) as a knowledge assessment tool in an undergraduate medical curriculum. Over a three year period (2006-2008), data were collected from first year didactic blocks in Genetics/Histology and Anatomy/Radiology (n = 42-50 per class). During…

Between 1998 and 2002, enrollment in American Sign Language (ASL) curricula at the postsecondary level has increased 433% nationally, representing the largest enrollment percentage gain of all world languages. This unprecedented demand for ASL linguistic study has created a wide range of instructional challenges, the most pervasive of which…

The School Based Management Process Development General Model was designed to sequentially outline the factors present in a school system's establishment of school-based management and provide a basis for data analysis. This paper not only describes the model, but applies it in presenting the factors that affect the implementation process of…

Using recent experience at Carleton College in Minnesota as a case history, the authors offer a model for assessment that provides more flexibility than the well-known assessment feedback loop, which assumes a linear progression within a hierarchical administrative structure. The proposed model is based on a double helix, with values and feedback…

Minnesota's Family Service Collaboratives and Children's Initiative Partners encourage cooperation between communities and schools to improve the health of babies and children, increase school readiness, provide stable family environments, and promote basic academic skills. To fulfill the evaluation needs of these programs, this resource manual…

This year the Center on Education Policy analyzed data on the achievement of different groups of students in two distinct ways. First, it looked at grade 4 test results to determine whether the performance of various groups improved at three achievement levels--basic and above, proficient and above, and advanced. Second, it looked at gaps between…

The proposed program represents a vehicle whereby Minnesota can conduct a comprehensive assessment of the State's educational progress. It can provide a means of periodically monitoring achievement in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The program is modeled after the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), an ongoing…

This booklet contains the 14 exercises that are used in the Bloomington, Minnesota, school system's writing assessment program. Depending on their applicability, the exercises may be used to assess the writing performance of fourth-, eighth-, or eleventh-grade students. Thirteen of the exercises are from the National Assessment of Educational…

This summary of the Bloomington, Minnesota, public schools writing assessment program includes background information about the selection of exercises that assessed fourth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade students' writing abilities, a list of these exercises that were used, and information about the students who were assessed. The results of the…

Recently the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) completed a project to connect the scale of the MCA and BST with NWEA's RIT scale. Six Minnesota systems participated in the study, using test information from a group of over 13,000 students enrolled in third, fifth, and eighth grades who took these Minnesota Assessments and NWEA tests in the…

Procedures for assessing the educational and employment activities of former high school students are presented and evaluated through a test conducted in seven Minnesota school districts (14 high schools). The procedure consisted of data gathering forms, an assessment procedures manual, and a computer program summarizing information for school…

This report discusses the findings of a survey of the 50 states that investigated how state graduation requirements apply to students with limited English proficiency (LEP) and whether students with LEP receive a standard diploma upon completion of their studies or some type of modified exit document. Results found a minimum graduation requirement…