A significant movement is underway across the nation to design K-12 assessment systems that better equip stakeholders to provide an equitable and excellent education to each child. While some of these innovations emerged before the pandemic, the massive disruption to instruction fueled a new urgency to rethink the potential of assessments to drive…

This article shares the results from a quasi-experimental mixed-methods study of a promising transition-focused professional development approach. The 12-week team-based intervention resulted in positive outcomes among intervention group participants' knowledge and capacities. The intervention group exhibited statistically significant changes in…

Despite evidence suggesting that standardized tests are an imperfect measure of academic readiness, many community colleges across the country rely on them alone to determine student course placement. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to transition to remote operations in spring 2020, proctoring in-person placement tests became…

Preparing to become a music teacher educator is a complex process and one component of this process should be learning to model, demonstrate, and teach assessment practices to preservice music educators. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to discover how, and to what extent, music teacher educators (MTEs) are educated about…

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…

Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

In 2010, HCM Strategists received support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to engage academic researchers in identifying and discussing the best currently available ways to account for differences in college "inputs"--students, resources, and fixed characteristics--when evaluating postsecondary outcomes. The project, Context…

Career and technical education (CTE) is increasingly seen as a major potential contributor to the recovery of the U.S. economy. However, the effectiveness and impact of the current Carl D. Perkins Act (otherwise known as Perkins IV) that governs CTE are unclear. Is the federal investment in CTE paying off? To answer this, we need to establish the…

Teachers have the greatest school-based effect on the achievement of any child in their classrooms, but highly effective principals can positively affect the achievement of every student in their schools. The difference between a highly effective principal and an average one is equal to two-to-seven months of extra learning per year for each child…

The authors present the argument that evaluation as currently practiced is failing the needs of the social sector, if the goal is to help organizations achieve their mission. Three case studies are presented in which evaluation played a key role in the development of a learning culture within the organization. Each case highlights the positive…

The state policy implications of using higher education performance indicators for accountability purposes are examined, based on the experiences of 10 case study states (Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin) and others that have initiated such efforts. Specific issues that must be…

Measuring History complements the cases presented in Wise Social Studies Practices (Yeager & Davis, 2005). Yeager and Davis highlight the rich and ambitious teaching that can occur in the broad context of state-level testing. In this book, the chapter authors and I bring the particular state history tests more to the fore and examine how…

These proceedings contain 48 presentations and 15 poster abstracts. Papers include "Computer Tasks Required in Selected Undergraduate Agriculture Courses" (Johnson, Ferguson, Vokinnns, Lester); "College of Agriculture Faculty Perceptions of Electronic Technologies in Teaching" (Dooley, Murphy); "Steering Through Turbulent…