Many special education (SPED) students are failing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) despite writing instruction provided by SPED teachers. The purpose of this study was to understand teachers' perceptions about why students were failing the literacy/writing test and document whether evidence-based assessment and writing practices…

Many undergraduate architecture programs have experienced high attrition levels, dating back to the 1940s (McClure, 1948). Despite this longstanding nature, many architecture faculty consider it an indicator of the quality of the program, not a problem to fix (Wiencke, 1994). However, the recession in 2008 had far-reaching effects, greatly…

Knowing how to write is critical to students' post-secondary success, yet concerns with students' writing have persisted for nearly four decades. Few reports, however, document high school English teachers' lack of preparation to teach writing or the pressures they face as they negotiate accountability policies and diverse student need. This…

Despite recent policy initiatives to ensure high school accountability through state-mandated testing, New Jersey high school graduates may not be prepared for the challenges of college-level writing because the state's high school assessment is not aligned with college-level expectations (Brown & Conley, 2007; Conley, 2003). An ever-growing…

The merits and shortcomings of formalized assessments of student writing have been debated by critics who maintain they are not valid measures of writing proficiency, often result in a narrowing effect on the local school curriculum and elicit predictable or formulaic writing by students and by proponents who argue they help to inform teacher…