Teacher effectiveness and evaluation using student growth measures is a popular reform strategy in education. Teachers can make a difference in student academic growth, but a question that begs an answer is how to go about measuring this impact. This study examines models of teacher effectiveness and the development of hierarchical linear models…

The focus of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on accountability created a high stakes educational environment. Although accountability is an important goal, guidance on how schools go about building the capacity to effectively accomplish the goals set in NCLB was not part of the legislation. This article supports the premise that a skillful balance of…

Schools employ educational technology to comply with pressures for greater accountability and efficiency in conducting operations. Specifically, schools use "management information systems" designed to automate data collection of student attendance, grades, test scores, and so on. These management information systems (MIS) employed widespread use…

Over the past few years, as part of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) reform on the one hand, and the increased demands for school accountability on the other, more and more schools have launched a school website aimed at enhancing educational activities, supporting student-teacher communication, contributing to school marketing…

The increasing use of school advisory councils for budgetary decision making is an obvious trend in new patterns of school governance. As decision makers, council members are lobbied by groups and individuals desiring funding for their particular interests. Problems that need attention are judiciously considered as competing interests vie for…

Accountability and assessment are critical components to the success of schools today. As leaders of school districts, superintendents in Texas and across the nation are faced daily with meeting this challenge. While doing so, they must remember that their priority commitment is not to testing programs, but to helping children achieve.…

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), for the comparative analysis of alumni teachers. This article shows how SASS can be used as an evaluative tool by any institution that wants to appraise its alumni in comparison to those of its parallel institutions for the purposes of…

Moore reviewed the literature on accountability and assessment in order to design a questionnaire to survey superintendents across Wyoming on their existing and needed knowledge about student assessment. Results on the presence or absence of gaps in knowledge that is deemed important by respondents and/or the literature can be used by colleges and…

Alignment means that in order to improve student achievement and learning, school districts need to have clear standards of attainment with which their curriculum and accountability measures must align. At the state level, this notion of alignment or coherence refers to the state-developed policies that comprise its accountability system. In the…

Testing and accountability programs can lead to some positive changes towards student performance. Here, Jones and Egley explore on whether Florida administrators thought that there was anything that could be done to improve the country's testing program in order to reduce or eliminate the types of concerns raised in George's study by conducting a…

In this article, the authors explore whether educational systems have the institutional capacity to implement comprehensive, systemic reform, as envisioned in legislation such as No Child Left Behind. Drawing upon evidence from various state-level reform initiatives, the authors highlight the ways in which systemic reform appears to positively…

The purpose of this article is to discuss an approach to analyzing the interactive effects of multiple reform efforts within a school or school district. The approach resulted from an intensive study of reform in one district in a state characterized by a strong accountability system. First, the authors present a brief history of educational…

Qualitative study involving the attitudes of 12 Northwest superintendents (four each from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho)toward site-based management. Finds among other things that in most cases school-based management has had little influence on the centralization of authority and control by the superintendent. (Contains 16 references.) (PKP)

This study found an inverse relationship between county income level or school system size and per pupil accountability cost; the burden of cost for accountability falls heaviest on the poorest and smallest school districts. State legislators must be cognizant of the costs of providing accountability. (Author/WM)

Present practice of continually seeking new assessment devices to replace older ones may not be as fruitful an approach to improving evaluation as careful attention to the way present information is handled. Improving methods of feedback could offer significant overall gains in the evaluation process in higher education. (Author/WM)