This year's Brown Center Report examines several issues that are important to No Child Left Behind and ongoing efforts to improve American schools. The first section of the report analyzes the latest data on student achievement and asks how the nation's students are doing in reading and mathematics. Achievement in rural schools receives a closer…

This paper provides cross-site policy analysis of themes related to state education reform and the impact of state educational reforms on students with disabilities and special education programs. It analyzes state-level reforms in the general education policy areas of curriculum, assessment, accountability, teacher development, and governance and…

This bulletin is intended to help British further education colleges clarify their rationale for entering into collaborative programs, assess prospective partners, define and implement good practice at all stages of provision, and establish rigorous quality assurance procedures. Following an introduction, Further Education Funding Council…

The National Consortium on Inclusive Schooling Practices (1996) developed a framework to analyze state and local policies and their effects on school inclusion. The framework focuses on standards-based systemic reform across six major policy areas: curriculum, student assessment, accountability, personnel development and professional training,…

This issues brief discusses the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Specifically, it reports on the results of focus groups that explored where people stand on standards-based education and whether they are likely to support or abandon struggling schools. The focus groups consisted of more than 60 participants who represented a broad cross-section…

This document is a synthesis of literature from 1997-2002 on the individualized education program (IEP), a core component of federal and state laws on the education of students with disabilities. The first section identifies the significant changes related to the IEP in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997. The…

This document is intended to reflect the commitment of the Mississippi State Board for Community and Junior Colleges to effectively coordinate its community college system. A brief history of the board, along with a description of its powers and duties, are given. Information about the state's community and junior colleges is provided in the…

Examines the British government's goal of introducing criterion-referenced, formative student evaluation in primary schools. Reports on a case study in which the reliability of a Standard Assessment Task was examined in three second-grade classrooms. Questions whether or not the decision to drop the task from the test was correct. (CFR)

Implementation of schoolwide projects in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) illustrates some of the conceptual problems associated with the Hawkins Stafford accountability amendments to the Chapter 1 supplementary education program. Unintended negative consequences are discussed, and recommendations are made to overcome these problems, including the…

This article identifies problems associated with excluding the scores of students with disabilities who need nonapproved accommodations and explores ways in which these scores can be included in system and student accountability systems. The need for Individualized Education Program teams to establish guidelines and establish a documentation…

This article sketches the historical context for the development of alternate assessment for students with disabilities, describes alternate assessment, and identifies some of the potential benefits of including students with significant disabilities in large-scale assessment. The correlation between alternate assessment scores and the…

This article discusses provisions under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that require all students with disabilities to have access to the general education curriculum and be assessed. The role of the Individualized Education Program in documenting student participation in state and district-wide educational assessments is explored.…

A study that examined state Individualized Education Program (IEP) forms found that out of the 41 with IEP forms, only 5 specifically addressed educational standards on their forms. Thirty-one states addressed the general curriculum on their IEP forms and 30 states listed three or more options for assessment participation. (Contains nine…

The situation of students with disabilities who also have limited English proficiency is addressed, including the identification of these students and a discussion of why it is important for them to participate in state and district assessments. Steps are recommended to ensure that these students are included so that they reap all the benefits of…

A main goal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is to close gaps in test scores between different groups of students while raising achievement for all groups. Of particular concern are the persistent achievement gaps between African American, Latino, and Native American students and their white and Asian counterparts, and between students from…