The music education profession is faced with two serious problems regarding the (mis)use of data in music teacher evaluation. The first has to do with the quality and kinds of data that music teachers have been forced to use; the second is concerned with how these data are being used in the music teacher evaluation process. The evidence I will use…

Evaluation systems of various types are an integral part of a country's education policy space, within which they are supposed to have the basic functions of enhancing accountability and supporting school development. Here we argue that in a crowded policy space evaluation systems may interfere with each other in a way that can have unintended…

Despite decades of effort by federal science funders to increase the numbers of women holding advanced degrees and faculty jobs in science and engineering, they are persistently underrepresented in academic STEM disciplines, especially in positions of seniority, leadership, and prestige. Women filled 47% of all US jobs in 2015, but held only 24%…

Background/Context: Education policymakers across the country face an urgent problem: we know there is wide disparity in teacher effectiveness, but we lack meaningful tools to identify and reward the most effective teachers or to ensure that the least effective improve or leave the classroom. Purpose: This article considers the value of the…

As we face increasing accountability in higher education, how we measure student learning should exceed the calls for an account of learning that places students at the center. Qualitative approaches to assessment and theoretical underpinnings gleaned from the qualitative research tradition may provide a way that we can support a more holistic…

State Education Agencies (SEAs) face challenges to the implementation of computer-based accountability assessments. The change in the accountability assessments from paper-based to computer-based demands action from the states to enable schools and districts to build their technical capacity, train the staff, provide practice opportunities to the…

Value-added models are considered one of the best alternatives not only for accountability purposes but also to improve the school system itself. The estimates provided by these models measure the contribution of schools to students' academic progress, once the effect of other factors outside school control are eliminated. The functional form for…

The essay considers two analogies that help to reveal the limitations of value-added modeling: the first, a comparison with batting averages, shows that the model's reliability is quite limited even though year-to-year correlation figures may seem impressive; the second, a comparison between medical malpractice and so-called educational…

For the past decade and a half, the fight to improve America's schools has been fought largely on two fronts: academic standards as one battleground, and accountability the other, with the issue of mandatory testing adding heat to a very public--and increasingly politicized--debate. The questions for policymakers and educators are as direct as…

Citizen-led assessments were developed in the mid-2000s to gather evidence on children's learning outcomes following the rapid increase in primary student enrolment in the developing world. Integral to their philosophy is social accountability and community engagement. While most large-scale assessments focus on test-based accountability to…

The last two decades have seen fast-moving and wholescale changes in the ways that education is now provided in French schools, in the nature of learner assessment, and in the form and scale of system evaluation. Innovation and reform have in part followed international trends, themselves triggered by the global impact of the international…

Like any profession or talent, mastering teaching takes thousands of hours of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007). Here, "deliberate" means having a coach or mentor to provide feedback on key skills and strategies for practicing to develop them. If this is true--that mastering the practices of great teaching…

Background/Context:Policy discussions in the U.S. and abroad have become increasingly studded with reference to the results of international tests like PISA. Unlike most assessments, PISA is not designed to measure whether students have mastered a particular school curriculum but rather provide a measure of students' ability to meet future…

This literature review begins with a description of the process used to conduct the literature review, parameters for the review, and the characterization of the literature. The body of this review consists of four sections: (1) Development and/or Adoption of State English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards, (2) Design and Development of the ELP…

Federal legislation has demanded increased accountability requirements for teacher excellence. Teachers and school leaders in the local schools are impacted tremendously by this decision. The necessity to provide students with high performing teachers is a priority of all stakeholders. The need to comply with federal grant requirements has added…