A longstanding issue in American education is the gap in academic achievement between majority and minority students. The goal of this study is to accumulate and evaluate evidence on the relationship between state education policies and changes in the Black-White achievement gap, while addressing some of the methodological issues that have led to…

Calls for accountability in America's schools have created increased responsibilities for educational leaders. In this article, we describe and discuss a study of elementary, middle, and high school principals' perceptions of the state-wide educational accountability program in North Carolina. The respondents indicated that the state's…

This editorial reviews recent studies of accountability policies using National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data and compares the use of aggregate NAEP data to the availability of individual-level data from NAEP. While the individual-level NAEP data sets are restricted-access and do not give accurate point-estimates of achievement,…