When historians discuss the impact of examinations on elementary education in mid-Victorian England and Wales they typically focus on the Revised Code of 1862. The Revised Code is famous for instituting a policy of "payment-by-results" for teachers in state-supported voluntary schools. "Payment-by-results" made government…

The ability to read print to help maintain independence and quality of life is a primary concern of people with visual impairments. One option for reading is a CCTV (closed-circuit television) or, using a more specific term, electronic magnifier. An electronic magnifier uses a camera to enlarge images onto a screen. The aim of this study was to…

This study analyzes Achieve3000, Lexia Core 5, and Imagine Learning software programs designed to increase student literacy levels in a six-week summer school program. The Brainology program was also used with 4th to 6th grade students to determine if there was an increase in growth mindset. Three elementary schools with the highest percentages of…

Reading-to-write (RTW) tasks are becoming increasingly popular and have already been used in several high-stakes English proficiency exams, either replacing or complementing a prompt-based essay test. However, it is still not clear that what accounts for successful or unsuccessful performance on an integrated reading-writing task is owing to the…

Purpose: This paper argues that in a well-organised school with strong leadership and vision coupled with a concerted effort to improve the teaching performance of each teacher, student achievement can be enhanced. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that while macro-effect sizes such as "whole of school" metrics are useful for…

We examined reading proficiency, focusing on fluency, in 56 Russian-speaking language minority (LM) students and 56 native Hebrew-speaking (NH) peers. Fifth-grade students completed measures of Hebrew reading accuracy and fluency from word to text level as well as phonological awareness (PA), RAN and vocabulary. LM students read single words less…

The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program was developed to increase the number of secondary students who participate in rigorous academic courses, to accelerate student learning, and to improve student performance. The AVID program in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) targets students who (1) are in the academic…

In July 2010, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to adopt Common Core's standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in place of the state's own standards in these two subjects. The vote was based largely on recommendations by Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester and then Secretary of…

Background: Although there has been considerable research into the reliability of marking for the Key Stage 3 (KS3) National Curriculum tests (NCTs) and public examinations such as the General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations (GCSEs) in England, little is understood about the level of reliability of marking of the Key Stage 2 (KS2)…

Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4-10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated stereotype threat, informing children aged…

Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) provide elementary, secondary, and postsecondary instructors with the opportunity to align standards-based foreign language instruction with assessment practices. While IPA guidelines make it clear that all three modes of communication are to be assessed, the limited body of research on IPAs provides few…

Results from a survey of 227 adult English learner (EL) faculty in community and technical colleges in the United States reveal a clear desire to better serve adult ELs, but a lack of resources specifically designed to do so. Faculty want and need more resources to support the teaching and learning process, in the form of thoughtful assessments,…

This memorandum describes the SAT participation and performance for the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Class of 2015 compared with the graduating seniors in Maryland and the nation. The attachment provides the detailed results of SAT and ACT by high school and student group for graduates in 2011-2015. The mean SAT combined score for the…

The name "SAT" has become synonymous with college admissions testing; it has been dubbed "the gold standard." Numerous studies on its reliability and predictive validity show that the SAT predicts college performance beyond high school grade point average. Surprisingly, studies of the factorial structure of the current version…

In 2012, the Ministry of Education, Afghanistan, engaged the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) as a partner to support the development of a national learning assessment program in Afghanistan. To achieve this goal, the Learning Assessment unit of the Ministry of Education and ACER have collaborated to design and implement the…