After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

A description of course accreditation in Australian colleges of advanced education considers the development of the present system, procedures followed at state and national levels, strengths and weaknesses of the present system, and possible future directions. A discussion of what accreditation is and what purposes it might achieve and a brief…

Systems to periodically evaluate the performance of K-12 schools are, broadly speaking, of two kinds: "inspection," the paradigm of England's OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education); and "accreditation," originally developed nearly a century ago by what are now the U.S. regional accreditation agencies. In the past decade…