"The Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Second Edition" (CARS2; 2010) includes two rating scales; the CARS2-Standard Version (CARS2-ST) and the newly developed CARS2-High Functioning Version (CARS2-HF). To assess the diagnostic agreement between the CARS2 and DSM-IV-TR versus DSM-5 criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), clinicians at…

Recently, the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) completed a study to connect the scale of the North Carolina State End of Grade (EOG) Testing Program used for North Carolina's mathematics and reading assessments with NWEA's Rausch Interval Unit (RIT) scale. Information from the state assessments was used in a study to establish…

The criteria for determining the student outcomes that define a school as having "turned around" are not well defined, and the definition of turnaround performance varies across studies. Although current policy initiatives offer guidelines for identifying CLP schools, there is no standard definition or methodology in common usage. This…

Wake County Public School System's (WCPSS) 102 elementary schools have implemented standards-based grading. This grading practice is aligned with North Carolina's Student Accountability Standards and the WCPSS Promotion/Intervention policy. Standards-based report cards were designed to reflect student mastery of state standards and provide an…

Instructional strategies aimed at improving achievement of low performing student subgroups in need of support were selected by the District Improvement Advisory Committee, so that WCPSS could exit District Improvement status. Impact of each initiative, which often included teacher training and coaching is examined in this implementation report.…

Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities…

Isothermal Community College (ICC) is located in Spindale, North Carolina. The college serves approximately 2,000 curriculum students every fall and spring semester and about 1,000 curriculum students in summer semesters. The Student Affairs department at ICC is divided into 10 functional areas. Over the last several years, student affairs staff…

This profile is designed to be a recording sheet for monitoring an individual student's progress throughout the school year. Seventh grade assessment materials and the Strategies for Instruction in Mathematics suggest tasks and questions that can be used for on-going and summative assessment. Directions for use and descriptions of the four levels…

This report summary focuses on third-party evaluations of career ladder/incentive pay programs in four states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah. The summary addresses programs that contain the concepts included in performance-based ladders, job-enlargement ladders, and professional-development ladders. The first section presents…

This document concerns performance appraisal as mandated by the North Carolina Legislature for all certified educational professionals. It notes that, in 1985, all newly certified professional education personnel, including school psychologists, came under the Initial Certification Program (ICP) requirements which issued newly certified school…

Texas and North Carolina have exhibited strong levels of commitment to define and enforce standards of competent performance in the teaching profession. To make up for a prior lack of definition of what constitutes teacher effectiveness, both states have developed similar systems of teacher appraisal. In North Carolina, the Teacher Performance…

The purpose of this document is to assist members of the North Carolina Professional Practices Commission in the development of guidelines for teacher evaluation. The paper reviews the historical development of teacher performance appraisal and the implementation of the Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument (TPAI) starting in the mid-1980s.…

This handbook is intended for public school educators who are attempting to identify students with special educational needs, diagnose specific causes, and plan programs to meet these unique needs. To help in the evaluation of disadvantaged and handicapped students, the document presents a descriptive list of conditions and characteristics of…

This document is the result of an extensive effort to design an assessment program in communication skills and mathematics for first and second graders. It contains resource materials and instruments that school systems can use in their assessment programs. The resource materials include strategies for teachers to use in evaluating student…

The focus of second language education is communication, and oral language is central to the teaching of foreign language at all levels. Oral language in the foreign language classroom is the most problematic of all skills to assess. Teachers' concerns can be divided in the following areas: (1) What to assess: form or content; (2) How to assess:…