Data shows that kids are months or even years behind where they would be in a typical year. And a deepening educational divide between majority white schools and majority black schools, between wealthier school districts and higher poverty districts. The results of this year's statewide exams made abundantly clear what other data is showing as…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how principals and school supervisory authorities understand and use feedback from mandatory proficiency tests (VERA) in the low-stakes context of Germany. For the analysis, the authors refer to a theoretical model of schools that differentiates between Autonomous and Managed Professional…

In response to the continued pressure placed on American public schools to increase academic achievement, some schools have begun to reorganize instructional environments in an effort to improve student outcomes. The current study examined one such elementary school that implemented a departmentalized model of instruction in fourth and fifth-grade…

Over the past decade, national initiatives have shifted States' attention to the challenge of turning around low-performing schools. The lack of consistent, dramatic improvements in the lowest-performing schools reflects the severity of the school turnaround challenge, but also suggests the need to continuously evaluate and refine turnaround…

In recent years the educational policy environment has emphasised data-driven change. This has increased the expectation for school personnel to use statistical information to inform their programs and to improve teaching practices. Such data include system reports of student achievement tests and socio-economic profiles provided to schools by…

Within the context of Taiwan, where growing numbers of universities seek teaching excellence and better English learning outcomes, passing a designated English test has been imposed on thousands of university students as one of their degree requirements. This educational policy has become feasible only after the debut of the indigenous General…

In the summer of 2011, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to provide a four-day training for all evaluators across the state. NIET trained more than 5,000 evaluators intensively in the state model (districts using alternative instruments delivered their own training).…

Procedures used by 55 faculty in the evaluation of students in various academic areas in Indiana University were studied. The majority of respondents taught undergraduates, were male, and were experienced, full-time faculty. Business faculty used primarily essay tests and research papers, while physical science faculty used mostly objective tests,…