Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

The current national debate about higher education has focused heavily on varying interpretations of the U.S. higher education system's accountability structures. Much of that debate has emphasized undergraduate learning and the specific issues of student engagement and outcomes. But relatively little attention has been paid at either the state or federal level to questions about community college accountability systems, and specifically whether statewide accountability systems are helping or hurting efforts to improve performance by community colleges. This working paper evaluates the accountability systems in several key states in order to determine whether--and how--these state systems consider the unique situation of community colleges. The goal of the paper is to better understand the interconnections between the wholesale issues about accountability systems and the relatively more retail questions about whether these issues actually resonate in a meaningful way in the sector that educates the largest and most diverse number of students in American higher education. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This monograph reviews recent trends in school reform and proposes "learner-based accountability" as a new paradigm for conceptualizing and implementing school reform. The first chapter notes both an economic mandate for school change and a mandate for increased equity. It identifies key findings of the school effectiveness movement and stresses the importance of defining and monitoring the intended impact of reform initiatives on educational results. The second chapter reviews the movement to define standards and outcome frameworks, with sections addressing the establishment of national goals and standards (the Goals 2000 initiative), standards established by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and recommendations of the National Council on Educational Standards and Testing. It also considers other outcome frameworks including those explained in reports of the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (the SCANS Reports), the outcome framework for special education developed by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO), curriculum frameworks established by specific states, and implications of these standards for students with diverse needs. The final chapter addresses how the learner-based accountability paradigm can provide a focus for schools and be systematically monitored by means of management information system (MIS) technology. Application of a school-based MIS to support students with special needs is discussed in relationship to implementation of the NCEO framework. (Contains 48 references.) (DB)

Most states have experimented with performance accountability as a way to drive improvement in public higher education institutions and systems. However, efforts to implement performance funding in the United States have yielded mixed results. This policy brief describes the reforms that dramatically changed the policy landscape in England and explains the performance funding and regulatory control system that have driven improvement in this new landscape. It utilizes five years of cross-sectional, student-level data (1998-99 to 2002-03) from the Individualized Learner Record, a data set maintained by the Learning & Skills Council. The author received access to this data through former employment at the Social Disadvantage Research Centre at Oxford University, which has a data-sharing agreement with the Learning & Skills Council. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure, and 13 end notes.)

How and how much should students be tested? What information should schools and districts be required to collect and monitor? And what should be done when that information suggests a school is not meeting the expectations? Those questions are at the heart of Congressional discussions regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This brief offers recommendations on federal policy for assessment and accountability that are grounded in research on effective principal practice and on the direct feedback of effective school leaders. On assessment, New Leaders recommends that a reauthorized ESEA maintain assessment requirements, including the existing flexibility to innovate with new assessments that are comparable statewide.

That No Child Left Behind (NCLB) places unprecedented demands on districts and schools to improve student performance is trite and a truism. That NCLB places unprecedented demands on the design and productive use of accountability systems may be less well appreciated. In this article, the author considers how accountability is supposed to work to support the improvement of student learning; how it does work, based on available research evidence; and finally what might be done to make it work better.