Ninety-five percent of students at Redwood City's Hoover School, in San Mateo County, California, come from low-income and working-class Latino families, and nearly all start school as English language learners (ELLs). The elementary and middle school piloted the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) program in 2009 in hopes of raising reading…

Using assessment data to determine student growth has become an integral part of the accountability movement, and researchers and educators are currently examining how new rules impact the academic assessment of gifted learners. In 2008, the Association for the Gifted's Annual Symposium at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention focused on…

As test-based educational accountability has moved to the forefront of national and state education policy, so has the desire for better measures of school performance. No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) status and safe harbor measures have been criticized for being unfair and unreliable, respectively. In response to such criticism, in 2005 the federal…

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) launched a differentiated accountability pilot to allow states to distinguish between those schools identified for improvement in need of substantial help and those closer to meeting achievement goals. In July 2008 and January 2009, the Department approved waivers to give nine states the…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December 2015, is the latest reauthorization of one of the most influential pieces of federal education legislation, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The law had not been reauthorized since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed, and ESSA is the result of…

This study examines if practices that advocate for 21st century skills are in conflict with the mandates of NCLB. Interviews with influential school leaders of high achieving elementary schools focused on collecting data about 21st century skills. This study was designed to (a) Determine if 21st century skills are addressed in high achieving…

The Growth Model Pilot Program (GMPP) was introduced as a response to criticism of the reliance of No Child Left Behind on status-based indicators. Although incorporating a growth component appears to be a step in the right direction, it adds a level of complexity that brings to the fore new concerns. Three of the four papers in this special issue…

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools were held almost exclusively accountable for absolute levels of student performance. But that meant that even schools that were making great strides with students were still labeled as "failing," just because the students had not yet made it all the way to a "proficient" level…

The Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) was initiated to allow states to experiment with adjustments to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) status accountability system in order to improve the validity of AYP determinations by giving schools credit for students who are making significant growth. The pilot allowed states, districts, and schools to…

States participating in the Growth Model Pilot Program reference individual student growth against "proficiency" cut scores that conform with the original No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Although achievement results from conventional NCLB models are also cut-score dependent, the functional relationships between cut-score location and…

Using collaborative teamwork to build unique response-to-intervention (RTI) systems responsive to the needs and strengths within their separate schools and communities, two Montana elementary schools forged a trail for other schools. Each school encountered different obstacles along the way as well as distinctive ways of defining success. How can…

As part of a pilot program, the researchers sought to develop an instrument that would effectively measure the nature awareness of students. With this information, the researchers correlated nature awareness scores and science averages. According to Salomon and Perkins' theory of transfer, experiences in one situation can influence experiences in…

A key intent of the NCLB growth pilot is to reward low-status schools who are closing the gap to proficiency. In this article, we demonstrate that the capability of proposed models to identify those schools depends on how the growth model is incorporated into accountability decisions. Six pilot-approved growth models were applied to vertically…

This article reports that the six states that now have federal approval to change the way they hold schools accountable under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act will use six different ways to distinguish between schools with minor problems and those that need total overhauls. The variety of approaches will help inform Congress when it resumes…

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) initiated the Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) in November 2005 with the goal of approving up to ten states to incorporate growth models in school adequate yearly progress (AYP) determinations under the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA"). After extensive reviews, nine states…