This document offers a brief guide to understanding Virginia's system for holding schools accountable for raising student achievement. Virginia's accountability system supports teaching and learning by setting rigorous academic standards--known as the Standards of Learning (SOL)--and through annual statewide assessments of student achievement.…

The "State of the States 2016" summarizes state policies for arts education identified in statute or administrative code for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Information is based on a comprehensive search of state education statute and codes on each state's relevant websites. Complete results from this review are available in…

This narrative considers how well equipped today's teacher education students and faculty are to meet the demands of the new Common Core State Standards. Data from the Teacher Education Accreditation Council's national evaluation of teacher education programs gives a mixed picture that, while mostly encouraging, also reveals that some…

Implementing new college and career readiness standards, along with readying teachers and students for new assessments, is a monumental undertaking by multiple national, state, and local education leaders and organizations. One critical policy area for states to consider is supports for educator preparation programs to ensure that new teachers…

This feature article charts the efforts of the California Association of Professors of Educational Administration (CAPEA) to move from primarily a policy-driven organization that lacked a significant number of diverse members and perspectives to a values-driven organization committed to equity and cultural competency. This is a chronicle of the…

This report explains that The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--known since 2001 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB)--requires states to set annual objectives for increasing student achievement in reading and mathematics and closing achievement gaps among student subgroups. Under the flexibility waiver granted by the US Department of…

This article focuses on the assessment system at Western Governors University from the perspective of candidate assessment and performance and on the way in which this system is presented to the Board of Examiners of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Central to a successful review by the NCATE Board of Examiners…

More than two years after Education Secretary Margaret Spellings stood on a podium in Washington and announced the formation of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, some of its most powerful effects so far have been on a belt of community colleges in California. In the past year, at least 14 California community and junior colleges…

This brief is a summary of "Increasing the Application of Developmental Sciences Knowledge in Educator Preparation: Policy Issues and Recommendations" by Robert C. Pianta, Randy Hitz and Blake West. It includes highlights and policy recommendations contained in that paper. This brief argues that teachers and education administrators need…

This is the second of two reports commissioned by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) intended to address the dire need for teacher preparation policy and programs to reflect recent advances in scientific knowledge of child and adolescent development. In the first report, "Principles and Exemplars for…

A statement of basic principles of accreditation by the Commission for the Study of Accreditation of Selected Health Programs. (HS)

This article on accreditation includes a definition, historical background, and discussion of the various forms of accreditation with their resultant problems. Differences are brought out between regional or general, specialized, state, and federal accreditation. An important question is raised about how specialized and general accreditation can…

In the present paper, the author restricts himself to three major questions regarding accrediting of colleges and universities: (1) Ought there to be some form of accreditation, voluntary or otherwise? (2) If there is to be some form of accreditation, what is the future of voluntary associations in this effort? and (3) If there is to be some form…

State regulations governing the accreditation of colleges of education in the state of Virginia are set forth. (JD)

The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the subsequent review of federal regulations dealing with accreditation by the U.S. Department of Education have energized a national dialogue on fundamental issues concerning student learning, quality assurance, educational effectiveness, and transfer of credit. We…