A study of four teacher-evaluation programs--in Tennessee, Texas, Oregon, and Colorado--finds that measures of student learning can be an important source of feedback on the effectiveness of schools, administrators, and teachers. Includes extended description of Tennessee's accountability system that uses test scores in the evaluation of teachers.…

Curriculum alignment, which links instructional content to state-designed tests, is destigmatizing "teaching to the test." Ignoring this linkage can have painful consequences. Substandard school performance can cause Texas principals to lose their jobs and Maryland schools to forfeit substantial monetary rewards. Indianapolis schools try…

Defends New Jersey's school takeover law as the final step of a monitoring process designed to ensure the health of local schools. Most of New Jersey's 583 school systems have achieved state accreditation, and many of the 16 that haven't will be certified within the year. An inset describes the takeover process. (MLH)

Hartford, Connecticut, hired Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI), to help run the schools. EAI's key responsibility will be to help the school board implement their strategic plan for high and clear performance standards, improved assessment methods, more and better staff training, a decentralization of authority, and increased use of technology.…

Transforming the school as an organization requires change in all its components. More important, transformation connects the technical components with the human elements to create fundamental changes in the ways people perceive, think, and behave. With the community, a Wisconsin school board adopted a school district value statement to be used as…

Under Rhode Island's new School Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT) program, the state gathers information from such sources as statewide performance assessments, in-depth community surveys, and computerized, comparative analyses of school expenditures. Article offers basic guidelines for program evaluation. (MLF)

Describes the use of curriculum management audits to improve student achievement. (PKP)

For a teacher accountability agreement to be effective, the teacher employment contract should contain first, the teacher's accountable duties; second, some clear manner of indicating to whom the accountability is due, or the parties having the right to sue for nonperformance; and third, the student performance standards themselves. (Author)

Presents evidence to demonstrate that accountability (1) is developing into something it was never meant to be; (2) can mean more freedom for school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers; and (3) can place extra pressures on board members. (Author/JF)

Public school districts signing on with private companies to provide services need to set up contracts with performance standards. Provides seven general advice tips about what to include in contracts and case studies of what three school districts have done in setting up contracts with private companies. (MLF)

Accountability involves multiple indicators and multiple sources of information about student achievement. Assessments should be based on standards for which teachers and students are prepared and with which they can succeed. Offers five suggestions to school boards. (MLF)

Public school choice sounds egalitarian, but questions of funding and equity raise the possibility of an excuse for racial segregation. Questions what will happen to equality as well as to quality in public education if proponents of school choice succeed in shifting revenues away from poor schools. (MLF)