Never before have Americans had greater access to information about school quality. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), all school districts are required to distribute annual report cards detailing student achievement levels at each of their schools. Local newspapers frequently cover the release of state test results, emphasizing…

This paper takes a close look at India's literacy rate by exploring whether the officially "literate" can read and at what level. In a large sample, aged 7+, drawn from four Hindi-speaking states, two methods were used to measure literacy. One was the standard Census Method (CM) which relies on self-reporting and the other was a Reading…

As the largest international study ever taken in history, the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been held as a benchmark to measure U.S. student performance in the global context. In-depth analyses of the TIMSS project are conducted in this study to examine key issues of the comparative investigation: (1) item flaws in mathematics…

This article discusses the decisions that school leaders must make to reclassify students as fluent and proficient in English and the implications that reclassification decisions could have for the future achievement of those students. The study examined the achievement gap between English learners and the overall student population and the…

At the end of secondary education in The Netherlands, students have to pass a final examination, consisting of an internal school-based assessment and an external national assessment. According to the Dutch inspectorate, to ensure the quality of final examinations, the discrepancy between both assessments must be less than 0.5 points (on a scale…

This study investigates the possibilities of estimating value added as a performance indicator in senior secondary vocational education. Value added is interesting in this context because it is considered as a reliable tool for comparing the effectiveness of educational institutions. Although value added indicators have been developed since the…

Grade inflation in academic institutions. Is it a subject so complex and pervasive in education that it defies resolution? The issue of grade inflation is of concern to college students, faculty, administrators and future employers. There is much gnashing of teeth, some veiled threats, wringing of hands, and both written and oral discussion of the…

Purpose: Many students do not benefit from mainstream education and are forced to leave it. Governments and non-government organisations concerned with the social injustice and problems that such rejection could cause offer these students second-chance education programmes. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of such opportunities, using…

Researchers have been challenged to find school-level characteristics that make a difference in student achievement. This study focused on a diverse sample of 24 middle schools to examine differences between schools rated Exemplary, Recognized, Academically Acceptable, and Academically Unacceptable on four performance indicator dimensions:…

We examined web-based ratings and open-ended comments of teaching-award winners (n = 120) and research-award winners (n = 119) to determine if teaching-award winners received more favourable ratings and comments on RateMyProfessors.com. As predicted, students rated teaching-award winners higher than research-award winners on measures of teaching…

Prediction models using graduation rate as the performance indicator were obtained for community colleges in California, Florida, and Michigan. The results of this study indicated that institutional graduation rate could be predicted effectively from an aggregate of student and institutional characteristics. A performance measure was computed, the…

In the international context, the quality of public primary education in Indonesia is sub-standard. The assumption of officials at all levels of government is that a significant increase in funding will be required to improve education performance. The analysis in this paper shows that money does indeed matter for the attainment of primary…

Due to the magnitude of "NCLB", the pressure on teachers has increased to perhaps immeasurable proportions. One could argue that "NCLB" has ramifications for nearly all aspects of the teaching-learning process, including classroom-based assessment. The purpose of this study was to describe teachers' beliefs about…

This paper represents an investigation of the broad factors which underpin the success of second-level schools in terms of the proportion of their "sits" who proceed to third-level education and, also, in terms of the "quality" of their educational destinations. It distinguishes between three school types: public (non-fee…

Policymakers target educational accountability primarily at public school administrators and teachers, rather than also include the broader society in which schools are housed and where poverty thrives. This article proposes a process through which community members can develop a report card to determine the educational capacity of a region and…