The Components of an ìIdealî Accountability System

An ìidealî accountability system should have six interrelated and reinforcing elements.

ÿ Alignment of state and local content standards

ÿ Student performance standards and aligned assessments

ÿ Ongoing data analyses and reviews of school performance

ÿ School improvement and intervention strategy

ÿ Stakeholder involvement and engagement

ÿ Continuous improvement of an accountability system

Alignment of state and local content standards

… Understanding Standards

Content standards ó what students should know and be able to do in key subject areas ó are the first building block of a standards-based accountability system. If schools are going to be held accountable for ensuring that students master certain content, that content must be clearly specified. Defining ìworld classî standards is viewed by many as a critical component of coherent, systematic reform.

High Standards: Giving All Students a Fair Shot, Achieve Policy Brief. "The goal of standards-based reform is to help all students reach higher levels of performance, not to set impossible goals or create winners and losers. Achieving that goal requires implementing policies that give all students a fair shot at meeting standards.î

ìDeveloping Content Standards: Creating a Process for Changeî outlines some lessons suggested by past and current efforts to develop ambitious standards.

Assessments and Accountability by Robert L. Linn emphases three issues regarding currently popular accountability systems, (a) the role of content standards, (b) the dual goals of high performance standards and common standards for all students, and (c) the validity of accountability models.

ìThe Bumpy Road to Education Reformî by Jennifer O'Day, Margaret E. Goertz, and Robert E. Floden identifies five challenges that confront educators and policymakers as they develop higher standards and other policies and structures to support improved student and teacher learning.

Bringing All Students to High Standards, a publication of National Education Goals Panel examines the role that state and district policies play in helping schools succeed.

… Michigan Standards

In Michigan, districts have developed their own local standards, but these are required to be aligned with the standards adopted by the State Board of Education. The Michigan Curriculum Framework includes standards focused on content, teaching and learning, assessment, and professional development.

Content Standards ñ English

Content Standards ñ Mathematics

Content Standards ñ Science

Content Standards ñ Social Studies

Content Standards must be implemented at a

… National standards

Links to state web sites in other states specifically on standards-based reform

Standards by discipline

Achieve helps states compare their standards to the best examples available through its Benchmarking Initiative.

State, and Community-Developed Standards.

Student Performance standards and aligned assessments

Understanding Student performance standards and aligned assessments

From ìStandards-Based Accountability Systems,î by Jan Stapleman, Policy Brief, McREL

Most states have accomplished the hard work of adopting statewide content standards and have begun the even more difficult task of developing assessments that accurately measure what students know and are able to do in relation to those standards. In order to implement equitable and accurate assessment, however, states and districts must confront certain questions:

What constitutes fair and appropriate testing?

Standardized tests assess all students in the same, predetermined manner. Critics argue that these tests do not accurately measure in-school student learning because many of the test questions address topics that have not been taught in the classroom. Research studies have shown that some questions on these tests are designed to assess studentsí intellectual capacity or out-of-school learning, rather than what has been learned in school (Popham, 1999).

Some states and districts use commercially produced, norm-referenced, standardized tests to assess student achievement. Norm-referenced tests measure studentsí performance against that of other students across the nation. Experts often argue instead for the use of "criterion-referenced"

tests, which measure student performance against specific content standards. By the end of 2000, at least 30 states will have developed such tests (Fox, 1999). But criterion-referenced tests have raised different concerns. For example, some parents and policymakers still will want to know how their students compare with students nationwide - information that typically is not provided by criterion-referenced tests (Education Week, 1999, p. 18; Fox, 1999).

Another assessment debate centers on the use of traditional multiple-choice questions versus open-ended questions, portfolios, and performance assessments. Although critics charge that multiple choice questions canít adequately measure complex thinking and problem-solving, nontraditional testing methods have received criticism for being too subjective and not focusing on the basics (Education Week, 1999, p. 16). Further, tests that include constructed response items in addition to multiple choice items are more costly to administer and score.

Budget constraints usually require that state, district, and local policymakers must weigh costs against benefits when selecting assessments. Often it is more cost-effective to purchase a commercial, standardized test. Some experts argue that because such tests are subjected to rigorous validation criteria, standardization procedures, and reliability testing, their results are more useful in comparing, generalizing, and determining levels of attainment of specified standards (Sanders and Horn, 1995). In response to the standards movement, certain commercial test publishers are customizing their tests to fit the content standards and policy objectives of various states, to mixed reviews (Fox, 1999).

Common sense dictates that in order for statewide assessments to measure student learning against state content standards, the tests must be aligned with those standards. Logic also follows that no one type of assessment is the best choice in every situation. Testing within the classroom

relies on a variety of methods, including performance assessments and portfolio evaluation (Sanders and Horn, 1995). But many of those methods are difficult and costly to employ when large numbers of students are being tested as part of a statewide accountability system. Using multiple types of assessments is, perhaps, the best way for educators to gain a complete picture of student achievement because they can combine results from commercially available, standardized tests with those from locally developed, alternative assessments.

Who should be tested?

The standards-based reform movement has emphasized that special needs students and English language learners should be included in statewide assessments, based on the belief that schools should be held accountable for the learning of all students. The inclusive nature of the movement is also supported by legislation. The 1997 IDEA amendments require that all students with disabilities be included in state and district assessments or be given an alternative examination (U.S. Department of Education, 1997). The 1994 ESEA Title I amendments (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.) require that Title I students be tested with the same assessments used for all other students in a state.

The move to include all students in testing creates a dilemma for educators, especially when test results involve high-stakes consequences. For example, testing students in a language they donít understand can produce low, inaccurate test scores. On the other hand, excluding certain groups can produce an inflated overall picture of student performance.

In order to get an accurate measure of learning among all their student groups, states, districts, and schools must test all students except those with the most severe disabilities, providing appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities or students who are learning English. Examples of reasonable accommodations may include such provisions as administering the test in a separate location, or in more than one session, or in the studentís native language or Braille (Landau, Vohs, and Romano, 1998). Test results can be interpreted with more accuracy by reporting the scores of student subgroups in addition to overall student performance (Linn, 1998).

What are the risks of high-stakes testing?

Experts continue to debate the wisdom of employing high-stakes tests - tests that carry significant consequences for schools, educators, or students. For schools, those consequences may involve the amount of future funding or the threat of sanctions. For educators, they may include reassignment or termination. For students, they may affect the ability to graduate or advance to the next grade.

Many educators and parents credit their districtsí use of high-stakes testing for prompting students to get serious about learning. A survey conducted by Public Agenda in conjunction with Quality Counts ë99, found that 68 percent of high school students queried said exit exams "make

them work harder" (Education Week, 1999, pp. 53-54).

But sometimes high-stakes tests produce undesirable and unintended consequences, such as teaching the test or excluding some students from testing (Fuhrman, 1999). Tying assessments to studentsí graduation or promotion can prompt students to drop out or increase the number of years necessary to graduate (Education Week, 1999, pp. 55-56). High-stakes testing also can invite court challenges to the accuracy and fairness of the measurement tools (Barnes, 1999; Institute for the Study of Educational Policy, 1994; Phillips, 1993). When schools, districts, and states evaluate their accountability systems, it is a good idea to examine not only the expected, positive effects, but also any unintended, negative consequences (Linn, 1998). Most states have

From ìDesigning a Sustainable Standards-based Assessment Systemî by Don Burger

Standards-based assessment systems that are used to inform instruction require valid,

reliable, generalizable tests; and need to provide immediate feedback to students and teachers. Traditionally, standardized norm-referenced tests (NRTs), such as Iowa, Stanford, or Metropolitan, have been used as the school and district accountability measure. While NRTs do an adequate job of comparing students to other students on basic skills, they do not measure student mastery of content standards. Depending on the definition of what students must know and/or be able to do established in content standards, NRTs may not be valid measures of the content standards.

Emerging content standards offer schools, districts and states an opportunity to check the validity of the tests being used for accountability. If the accountability tests are to align with and measure content standards, criterion-referenced assessments (CRTs) that are valid, reliable and generalizable must be found or developed (Guskey, 1994). CRTs compare student performance to established criteria rather than to the performance of other students. CRTs allow all students who have acquired skills and knowledge to receive high scores. It is important to resolve the format of the district accountability test first, i.e., NRT or CRT, because non-alignment may still occur between district accountability assessments and classroom assessments.

Portfolios, performance assessment and authentic assessment are the current trend in student assessment. Machine scoreable, multiple choice formats, and tests that require the use of paper and pencil only have been criticized because they do not reflect practices in the "real world." However, there are "high stakes" multiple choice and paper and pencil formats that directly impact students and adults. The American College Test (ACT), Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) are high stakes tests that use multiple choice and paper and pencil formats which college bound students face in the real world.

Classroom assessment is another component of the practice element. Classroom assessments play a critical role in a standards-based system. Teachers need tools to make minute-by-minute instructional decisions for each student. Checklists, portfolios, teacher observations, and teacher made tests or tasks are the teachers' primary assessment tools. While classroom assessments may not use the exact same items or tasks as the district level accountability tests, they should be measuring the same knowledge or skills in approximately the same format as the district accountability test. Alignment of both classroom assessments and district level accountability assessments with content standards is essential. At the "practice" element level, classroom assessments are aligned with content standards and district level assessments for accountability.

Classroom assessment is most effective if what gets taught gets tested; if classroom assessment is aligned with district level accountability assessment and content standards; and if all these are congruent with purpose, principles, policy and practice. Aligned classroom assessment enables the teachers to make instructional decisions for students on a continual basis. Classroom assessments allow students to practice skills from simple to complex and to integrate those skills in meaningful ways. Students must know what skills they currently have and what they are expected to do in order to meet or exceed the standard. Since classroom and accountability assessment are aligned, there is no time wasted preparing for tests that occur only in October or April. Teachers enjoy more latitude in the formats classroom assessment can take when district level accountability assessments are legally defensible. Short and long term individual and group performances, projects and portfolios are better suited to classroom assessment than to district level accountability assessment. More time can be devoted to assessments that take longer than a class period as assessment becomes part of the instructional process. Student self-evaluation can play a substantial role in classroom assessment. However, students will be more successful on district level accountability if the classroom assessments are similar in format (Herman, Aschbacher & Winters, 1992).

Many teachers favor the use of portfolios as an assessment tool. Portfolios do a great job of showing students, parents and teachers the progress a student has made over time. However, questions about reliability currently hinder the use of portfolios for assessments where decisions about promotion, retention or graduation are involved (Koretz, Klein, McCaffrey & Stecher, 1993). The best evidence about a student's learning is collected and analyzed data from both

sources: classroom assessments and district level accountability assessments. Once alignment has been established, assessment for accountability will only verify what students and teachers already know from classroom assessment. The following table shows how classroom assessment fits in traditional and standards-based systems.

Programs

Programs are the easiest organizational element to impact but represent the level that has the least impact on student achievement. Programs are those things that can be purchased and implemented as a unit. Curriculum materials and instructional strategies generally fall into this element of the organization. Traditionally, curriculum adoption followed a multi-year cycle. Each content area waited its turn to go through the adoption process. Money was allocated for the purchase of new texts and materials according to that schedule. In between adoptions, teachers would supplement the curriculum with their own materials. Teachers developed favorite units which might or might not fit with the district scope and sequence. In the standards-based system, the development of curriculum and instruction occurs after consensus has been reached on content standards and after the format of accountability assessments has been determined. The purpose of curriculum and instruction is to provide the kinds of experiences that result in learning for each student such that all students meet or exceed performance standards (see

Procedures

Data management within the assessment system is part of the "procedures" element of the organization. The assessment system is directed by all of the previously described elements. Standards-based systems that use student data in the instructional decision-making process require data management systems that provide timely and accurate data about each student. Data management systems unable to provide data in "real time"--or to handle efficiently student transfers, new students, and students who have left the system--may need updating (see Table 12).

A Framework for Early Literacy Instruction, Aligning Standards to Developmental Accomplishments and Students Behaviors by Elena Bodrova, Deborah Leong, Diane Paynter and Dmitri Semenov includes standards and benchmarks for early literacy. These standards and benchmarks reflect the foundational knowledge needs of very young learners and recognize their unique developmental characteristics, as indicated by the research on early literacy development at the pre-k and kindergarten levels.

Student performance standards and aligned assessments in Michigan

The MEAP tests were developed to measure what Michigan educators believe all students should know and be able to achieve in five content areas: mathematics, reading, science, social studies, and writing. The test results paint a picture of how well Michigan students and Michigan schools are doing when compared standards established by the State Board of education. The MEAP test is the only common measure given statewide to all students. It serves as a measure of accountability for Michigan schools.

Results of MEAP tests can be used by schools for school improvement purposes. The results indicate overall strengths and weaknesses of a school districtís curriculum, and can be used to modify instructional practice. Results have been used for the Michigan Accreditation Program, and will continue to be used as one piece of this program as it evolves into an accountability model.

MEAP vs. Other Tests

Michiganís MEAP tests are based on the Model Core Curriculum Outcomes and the Content Standards approved by the Michigan State Board of Education. No other published tests match Michiganís Outcomes and Standards. Most MEAP test questions have actually been written by Michigan educators. Also, Michiganís MEAP tests are criterion-referenced, meaning that the results are reported as performance against a standard. These standards are set by Michigan educators and approved by the Michigan State Board of Education. Student performance is judged according to whether or not each student met the achievement standard. If a student meets the standard, it means he/she meets expectations set by the State Board of Education on the recommended curriculum. In theory, all students in the state could achieve the standard in every subject.

Content Standards ñ English

Content Standards ñ Mathematics

Content Standards ñ Science

Content Standards ñ Social Studies

Resources on Student performane standards and aligned assessments

Designing a Sustainable Standards-based Assessment System by Don Burger describes the process of re-examining and clarifying the organizational elements of a school system -- purpose, principles, policies, processes, practices, programs, and procedures -- in order to design a sustainable standards-based assessment system.

Models of Standards Implementation: Implications for the Classroom by Robert J. Marzano describes the various ways that standards and standards-based education are being addressed throughout the United States. The document presents three basic approaches to standards implementation: external tests, performance tasks and portfolios, and reporting out by individual standards. Each involves a different student assessment strategy, yet the approaches are not mutually exclusive and can be used simultaneously. The report discusses procedures of each approach and their implications for classroom teachers.

Assessment strategies If Michigan students are to be held responsible for achieving high educational standards, it is important that educators develop assessment strategies that ensure equity in assessing and interpreting student performance. In order to protect students from unfair and damaging interpretations and to provide parents and communities with an accurate overall picture of student achievement, educators need to be aware of the promise and the challenges inherent in using alternative assessment practices for high-stakes decisions (such as student retention, promotion, graduation, and assignment to particular instructional groups), which have profound consequences for the students affected.

Principles and Indicators for Student Assessment Systems National Forum on Assessment provides a vision of how to transform assessment systems and practices as part of wider school reform, with a particular focus on improving classroom assessment while ensuring large-scale assessment also supports learning.

Balancing Local Assessment with Statewide Testing: Building a Program That Meets Student Needs describes important attributes of a model local assessment program. It walks the reader through the steps for building a local system that will elicit diagnostic information about what individual students are doing well, where they are struggling, and how the instructional program might be modified to address their needs.

Balancing Local Assessment with Statewide Testing: Building a Program That Meets Student Needs by Stanley N. Rabinowitz, Sri Ananda describes important attributes of a model local assessment program. It then walks the reader through the steps for building a local system that will elicit diagnostic information about what individual students are doing well, where they are struggling, and how the instructional program might be modified to address their needs.

Developing a Standards-Based Assessment System: A resource for administrators, teacher leaders, and staff developers, this introductory handbook may also be useful to parents, school boards, and community members who want to better understand the rationale and processes for developing and implementing a comprehensive standards-based assessment system.

Standards and Standards-based Assessment by Sharon P. Robinson describe major characteristics of good standards-based ssessments, and things you can do to evaluate the quality of the assessments in use in your school.

Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers (Toolkit98) Northwest Regional Educational Laboratories Toolkit98 is designed to assist classroom teachers to become better assessors of student learning. The primary users of Toolkit98 are intended to be those with a responsibility to coordinate and facilitate professional development in assessment for teachers. This two-volume resource is a hands-on document, filled with activities designed for workshop presentation, and contains current findings and approaches to blending assessment with instruction to improve student learning. First published in 1995, this bigger and better edition addresses all content areas and contains new sample assessments and training activities. $66.50 (please order directly from NWREL) No. z10291

CRESST Reports on Assessment inlude many relevant studies.

Teachersí Ideas and Practices about Assessment and Instruction A Case Study of the Effects of Alternative Assessment in Instruction, Student Learning and Accountability Practices

CSE Technical Report 366 Hilda Borko, Maurene Flory, and Kate Cumbo

CRESST examines the actual effects of introducing new forms of assessment at the classroom level.

Ongoing Data Analysis and Review of School Performance

Understanding Data Analysis

Understanding Why Data is Necessary Data?

Education decision makers must be able to understand information and use it effectively. Statistical data is a powerful tool to use for school planning, or needs evaluation, for community advocacy or for political presentation. The School improvement process must be based on a realistic and detailed understanding of how a school is performing. That understanding must be balanced by an equally thorough understanding of where a school or district needs to be and how large the gap is that needs to be closed. Informed decisions about improving a school should be based on the best available data about student performance, curriculum and school resources, staff capacity, and community support. Data-driven decision-making requires the collection and analysis of appropriate data about school and student performance.

Data Analysis in Michigan

The Michigan Dept. of Education provides a number of datasets to analyze a school or district data.

The Michigan School Report allows comparisons of schools or districts over time:

MDE K-12 Database contains longitudinal data for buildings, districts, and ISDs. To understand what is in each file, click on one of the files, look through the Layout or Field Description. Scroll through the list of variables in the file. Data must be downloaded to be viewed.

… Achievement Data: MEAP scores for specific tests. Available by Building, District, State

… FTE State Aid Counts: Number of children in each grade, children in special education classes, children in schools of choice or nonresident or juvenile detention facilities. This is the data used for funding. Available by District

… Financial Data: General Fund and Special Fund revenues and expenditures by category, Balance sheet. Very detailed financial data. Available by District and expenditures are available by building.

… Food and Nutrition: Children receiving free and reduced price lunches and breakfasts. Available by Building, District, State

… Instruction Data: Accreditation standards in 1997; hasnít been updated since fall, 1997. Available by Building

… Pupil Headcount Data: There are multiple datafiles in this category.

Enrollment by gender, grade, race/ethnicity.

Enrollment for multi-racial students by grade.

Graduation by gender, race and ethnicity. Also, includes graduation, dropouts/transfers.

Transfers in and out of a building, to alternative education or other districts.

High school enrollment by grade and drop-out/retention data

Pupil Headcount data is available by Building, District, ISD, State

… Staff Counts: Professional, nonprofessional, administrative, instructional staff counts. Available by Building, District, State

… Transportation Data: Driverís Education classes. Available by District

Government Information Sharing Project has demographic and social information by school district from the 1990 Census of Population and Housing.

The Michigan Merit Award and MEAP office has test scores for all buildings and districts, as well as the Merit Awards. http://www.meritaward.state.mi.us/

Data Analysis Nationally

The National Cooperative Educational Statistics System and the National Center for Education Statistics recommend Basic Data Elements to ìproduce and maintain comparable and uniform education statistics.î Using these basic data elements will provide more comparable and reliable education information for any educational system adopting the common terminology. It will also reduce redundancy and alleviate burden on data collectors and providers.

What Are The Basic Data Elements?

The basic data elements are building blocks for an education information system. The implementation of these basic data elements can provide data for:

_ education policy and decisionmaking for elementary and secondary education;

_ the understanding, operation, management, and improvement of local and state

education systems and federal education programs; and

_comparable statistics at the school, district, state, and national levels.

The basic data elements included in this report will not meet every education information purpose. State and local data collectors must examine and incorporate those data elements that are critical for state and local reporting purposes.

Policy Questions, Indicators, and Basic Data Elements

How well are our children learning? What is the cost of public education? Do all

students have the same opportunities to study challenging subject matter? Do students in the

U.S. learn as much as their counterparts in other countries?

The most important use of this set of basic data elements is to help schools address the needs of students. When these data elements are maintained at the school or district level they can provide information for teachers to monitor student needs, parents to become aware of their childrenís performance and principals to make better decisions regarding their schools and to ensure that students have qualified teachers and administrators. More comparable information enables state and local government leaders and the public to gauge the effectiveness of schools and how education dollars are being spent.

How To Use The Set of Basic Data Elements

A set of basic data elements should provide the means to answer the most frequently asked questions about the administration, status, quality, operation and performance of schools and school systems.

Future Directions

The information needs of education systems are constantly changing and education information systems must be modified to meet those needs.

Basic Data Elements For Elementary and Secondary Education Information systems contains a set of basic student and staff data elements recommended by the Core Data Task Force of the National Forum on Education Statistics. The purpose of these basic data elements is to provide a common language to promote the collection and reporting of comparable education data to guide policy and assist in the administration of state and local education systems. The report also contains a recommended process for identifying and periodically updating the set of data elements to be maintained by a school, school district, state education agency, or other education unit with a need for student and staff information.

State Performance Reports Online: States evaluations of public school districts and/or individual schools vary. The following categories are usually included:

Student outcome - measures such as attendance/dropout rates, graduation rates, graduate plans, student/staff ratios, etc., that give added insight on school environment;

Special education - numbers or percentages of special student populations, whether disabled, gifted, vocational, etc.

School safety - statistics that go beyond reporting suspensions/expulsions to actually detailing specific crimes committed in school,

Demographics - particularly ethnic and poverty breakdowns

Student performance - comparisons of results of statewide norm- and criterion-referenced tests

Staff Experience / Certification - detailing staff educational attainment and employment experience

Finances - including per-pupil expenditures, sources of revenues, etc. School accreditation

Technology - a wide range of information from computers per student to number of Internet hookups per school

What are the most frequently asked questions about Data Analysis

Why should we use a data-driven approach to school improvement?

School improvement planning must be based on a realistic and detailed understanding of how a school is performing now and why that is the case. That understanding must be balanced by an equally thorough understanding of where it needs to be and how large the gap is that needs to be closed. Informed decisions to close that gap will be based on the best available data about student performance, curriculum and school resources, staff capacity, and community support.

How should data be evaluated? The basic questions to ask for each indicator are:

1. What does the data tell you? Are the numbers high or low or average? Are there any red flags (data elements that jump out as being unusual)? What does the data show?

2. How does the data for your community compare with similar communities elsewhere in the county, the state, or the nation? How do the raw numbers compare (for example, Detroit accounts for half the population of Wayne County. Are the number of children in poverty in Detroit approximately half of Wayne County's poor children?) Are the rates the same? (for example, is the poverty rate the same in all communities within a county?)

3. How does the data change over time? Has the data been changing over time? Are the numbers/rates increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same? How has the data changed relative to the population changes (for example, is the increase in the number of infant deaths consistent with the population growth in the county?)?

4. What can be interpreted from the data? What do the numbers/rates tell you about what is happening? Do you know why it is happening? What could have caused the trend? What does the observed level or trend really tell you about this risk factor? What other factors or events could account for this result? Example: If the rate of child abuse is going up, can we infer that the incidents of abuse are really rising or may other factors in the community contributing? Are there more social workers available to investigate abuse? Have teachers/health care workers been through a new program to encourage reporting of suspected cases of abuse? Is a new facility open in the community for abused women and children that would raise the level of awareness in the community?

5. Are there relationships among risk factors that can be identified based on the data you have? Examine your data closely and look for linkages between indicators. For example: If the number of boys dropping out of high school is increasing as well as the juvenile crime rate, is there a possible connection between the two variables? Perhaps an intervention programs with children who have are doing poorly in school would increase the self-esteem of young boys in elementary and middle school. Then boys would be less likely to turn to theft or burglary for a feeling of success.

6. Make a decision as to which indicators show the greatest need for intervention or prevention programs. Consider the money you have to work with, the persons involved in program planning, and establish realistic goals and objectives.

Where can we find resources on Data Analysis

Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education: 2000 Edition was developed to provide guidance concerning the consistent maintenance of student information. This handbook defines data elements and definitions describing personal information, enrollment, school participation and activities, out of school experience, assessment, transportation, health, special program participation and discipline for pupils in early childhood, elementary, and secondary education

The Quality School Portfolio (QSP). is a stand-alone software application that schools can use to record and analyze their own students' data in detail. The tool also accepts other test data, as well as administrative and survey data.

The Education Policy Center at Michigan State University offers workshops to help Michigan school officials/researchers learn to create a profile for an individual school, for a school district, or for multiple districts using data available on the Internet. The workshop trains users to ìturn data into information.î Send an email to epc@msu.edu for more information.

Enhancing Individual Potential: A Vision of Student Assessment and Grade Structure at the Good Common School. Children are entitled to a broadly based assessment of their academic progress, and grading structures that enhance individual strengths and potential.

What Does Research Say About Assessment? R.J. Dietel, J.L. Herman, and R.A. Knuth NCREL

An Exploratory Analysis of School-Based Student Assessment Systems by Allison Cromey and Matthew Hanson, NCREL summarizes findings from an exploratory study of the school-based assessment practices in a sample of elementary, middle, and secondary schools. The purposes of the study were twofold: (1) to add to the growing base of knowledge about how schools use student assessment data obtained from multiple sources to inform important decisions about programs, instruction, and individual students; and (2) to identify and describe the factors and conditions that make schools' use of the student assessment data more probable and valuable.

Accountability must have measurable goals for student performance tied to the state's challenging standards as well as benchmarks for meeting those performance goals.

http://www.ncrel.org/csri/nine/four.htm

State Performance Reports Online States evaluations of public school districts and/or individual schools vary.

Herman, J., & Winters, L. (1992). Tracking your school's success: A guide to sensible evaluation. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, University of California. This book offers a variety of established techniques for evaluating and monitoring a school's academic progress and addressing its shortcomings. It demonstrates how to use evaluation as a tool for implementing changes and increasing accountability involving relevant stakeholder groups. The recommended approach is a six-step decision-making process that suggests ways to: (1) identify and report successes; (2) manage instrument and data collection; (3) score and summarize data; (4) analyze and interpret information; (5) act on findings; and (6) continue program monitoring. Sample worksheets, data, and surveys are also provided. Contact: Corwin Press, 2455 Teller Road, Newbury Park, CA 91320-2218 (805) 499-9734; Fax (805) 499-0871

Wagner, M., Fiester, L., Reisner, E., Murphy, D., & Golan, S. (1997). Making information work for you: A guide for collecting good information and using it to improve comprehensive strategies for children, families, and communities.

A planning and evaluation resource that focuses on using data to improve the lives of children and families. This guide offers principles, processes, and evaluation instruments that schools and community organizations can use to collect sound information and document program progress. Included in this evaluator's tool kit are suggestions for starting the evaluation process and for documenting results.

The District Role in Building Capacity: Four Strategies Diane Massell (No. RB-32-September 2000) This brief explores the challenges and promises of four major capacity-building strategies -- interpreting and using data, building teacher knowledge and skills, aligning curriculum and instruction, and targeting interventions on low-performing students and/or schools.

Pathways to School Improvement at NCREL was designed to help school improvement teams through the phases of the School Improvement Cycle.

The "Guide to an Integrated School Improvement Planning Frameworkî outlines the components of the integrated planning processóshared vision, data collection, analysis and gap analysis, integrated action plan, reflection, evaluation, and refinement. A companion document, A Template for an Integrated School Improvement Plan, outlines a format that school improvement teams or internal review teams may find helpful in developing their school improvement plan.

Pencils Down! A Guide for Using and Reporting Test Results (Gucwa & Mastie, 1989) describes how to use results from MEAP to help pinpoint each student's instructional needs, to review the school curriculum for strengths and deficiencies, and to plan instruction and set goals at the building level. This publication identifies four questions that an effective reporting plan must address:

Who needs or wants the information you have?

What information should be reported?

Why is the reporting being done, and what is the expected outcome?

How can the information best be transmitted to reach the intended audience(s)?

The publication contains suggestions that are applicable to more performance-based assessments and to assessments of an informal nature typical of the classroom.