What is a culture of assessment? According to this author, in a culture of assessment, staff members recognize that they must collect evidence systematically to demonstrate accountability to their stakeholders, and that they must use that evidence to improve. Fundamental to the concept is the author's back-of-the-envelope definition of…

This Special Issues Brief from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) offers recommendations for the design and implementation of educator evaluation systems that support the academic and social growth of students with disabilities. Teachers of students with disabilities work closely with specialized instructional support personnel…

There is perhaps no subject more contentious in schools than assessment and yet, often, at classroom, school and national level, inferences and decisions are made without much reference to research in this area. In fact, teachers often accept or interpret assessment requirements without question, feeling that assessment has to be approached in a…

We report the results of a pilot validation study of the Quality Assessment in Science Notebook, a portfolio-like instrument for measuring teacher assessment practices in middle school science classrooms. A statewide sample of 42 teachers collected 2 notebooks during the school year, corresponding to science topics taught in the fall and spring.…

This policy profile on education in Portugal is part of the "Education Policy Outlook" series, which presents comparative analysis of education policies and reforms across OECD countries. Building on the OECD's substantial comparative and sectoral knowledge base, the series offers a comparative outlook on education policy by providing…

Assessment practices and requirements are very broad and vary widely among academic programs and from one institution to the other. Consequently, we noticed, in the recent years, increased volumes of research and interest geared into the assessment process and procedures in various disciplines in higher education. In this paper, we present and…

This paper is meant to highlight the occurrence of Simpson's Paradox when using aggregated data obtained from two IEA studies in Israel, while ignoring the effect of a powerful intervening variable in the local context--the ethnicity factor. It will demonstrate faulty conclusions regarding either the absence of relationships between a contextual…

Dynamic Assessment (DA) originated in the writings of L.S. Vygotsky more than 80 years ago, and despite its popularity among a small community of specialists it is not widely pursued by educational researchers. This paper seeks to strengthen dialogue between DA proponents and the broader assessment community by identifying potential contributions…

This appendix presents the data collection instruments used for the "National Evaluation of Title III Implementation: Report on State and Local Implementation" study. The purpose of this study is not to monitor Title III implementation, but to describe the implementation of Title III in states and school districts across the country. The…

Data have long been considered a key factor in organizational decision-making (Simon, 1955; Lindblom & Cohen, 1979). Data offer perspective, guidance, and insights that inform policy and practice (Newell & Simon, 1972; Kennedy, 1984). Recently, education policymakers have invested in the use of data for organizational improvement in states…

The Michigan Context and Performance Report Card measures school performance by adjusting standardized test scores to account for student background. Comparing schools using unadjusted test scores ignores the significant relationship between academic performance and student socioeconomic background--a dynamic outside a school's control. The…

Statistical modeling of school effectiveness data was originally motivated by the dissatisfaction with the analysis of (school-leaving) examination results that took no account of the background of the students or regarded each school as an isolated unit of analysis. The application of multilevel analysis was generally regarded as a breakthrough,…

The purpose of this documentary account is twofold. First, we describe two strategic instructional assignments embedded in university courses at a large research institution in the United States that were designed to help teaching candidates move toward mastery. Second, we explicate candidates' performances on the assessments as well as evidence…

Two quasi-experimental methods--fixed effects (FE) and virtual control records (VCR)--were used to measure charter schooling in 14 states and two districts. The new VCR method uses all available observable charter student characteristics and prior performance to create a composite comparison record. A head-to-head comparison of the FE and VCR…

Using Singapore as an example, we argue that schools need to equip and encourage teachers to adopt authentic assessment in teaching and learning so as to develop the students' higher-order thinking. The importance of teaching and assessing higher-order thinking in Singapore classrooms is encapsulated in the vision of "Thinking Schools"…