In the United States, government mandates for educational accountability have prompted an increase in testing in K-12 and higher education settings, resulting in a generation of millennial students who have undergone repeated assessment over the course of their educational careers. The cumulative effects of testing may range from increasingly…

Students with disabilities participate in two major measurement systems. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act emphasizes working within a Response to Intervention (RTI) framework to identify and monitor the progress of low-performing students. Persistent low-performing students also may be eligible for some form of an alternate…

This study compared a value-added approach to school accountability to the currently used metrics of accountability in California of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Academic Performance Index (API). Five-year student panel data (N?=?53,733) from 29 elementary schools in a large California school district were used to address the research…

In the USA, trends in educational accountability have driven several models attempting to provide quality data for decision making at the national, state, and local levels, regarding the success of schools in meeting standards for competence. Statistical methods to generate data for such decisions have generally included (a) status models that…

The current study examined the goal orientations that could be inferred from how teachers from six municipal schools in Chile described their understandings, emotions, and behaviors during their participation in the assessment phase of the School Management Quality Assurance System. Content analysis of focus group interview transcripts evidenced…

Value-added models are considered one of the best alternatives not only for accountability purposes but also to improve the school system itself. The estimates provided by these models measure the contribution of schools to students' academic progress, once the effect of other factors outside school control are eliminated. The functional form…

Many studies point to potential unintended consequences of accountability systems such as when schools narrow their teaching to fixate on tested subjects. As a result, some states and districts in the USA have complemented the federal test-based accountability system with additional measures of educational practices to hold schools accountable on…

This study compared the impact of state accountability examinations on social studies teachers' instructional practices. Data were obtained from a survey instrument given to a representative sample of Mississippi teachers who teach the same content tested on their state's high-stakes high school graduation examination and a representative sample…

The No Child Left Behind Act has made a great impact on states' policies in assessing English language learner (ELL) students. The legislation requires states to develop or adopt sound assessments to validly measure the ELL students' English language proficiency (ELP). Although states have moved rapidly to meet these requirements, they face…

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the key assumptions underpinning the "Whole School Evaluation" (WSE) inspection policy developed in Ireland since 2003. Beginning with a documentary analysis the paper argues that the capacity to generate useful self evaluative data in schools was seen as being at the heart of the model of school…

Over the previous two decades, the era of accountability has amplified efforts to measure educational effectiveness more than Edward Thorndike, the father of educational measurement, likely would have imagined. Expressly, the measurement structure for evaluating educational effectiveness continues to rely increasingly on one sole…

Assessment is a critical component of educational practices and thus impacts educational reform efforts. This article reviews and considers assessment from 2 perspectives: a focus on accountability and a focus on continuous improvement. A class of preservice and practicing science teachers explored notions of assessment while experiencing peer…

This article describes the history, evidence warrants, and evolution of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing's (CRESST) model-based assessments. It considers alternative interpretations of scientific or practical models and illustrates how model-based assessment addresses both definitions. The components of the…

This study addressed the topic of job specifications and school characteristics since there is a shortage of quality AP applicants in high-stakes accountability environments. It is important to learn about allocation of duties from educational administrators with on-the-job experience as well as to learn why current APs would consider applying for…

Accountability for educational quality is a priority at all levels of education. Low-stakes testing is one way to measure the quality of education that students receive and make inferences about what students know and can do. Aggregate test scores from low-stakes testing programs are suspect, however, to the degree that these scores are influenced…