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Descriptors:
Public Agencies; State Government; Financial Support; State Aid; Smoking; Health Promotion; Health Programs; Program Evaluation; Training; Role; Evaluators; Technical Writing; Reports; Information Utilization; Attitudes; Stakeholders; Accountability; Program Effectiveness; Test Construction; Scoring

Abstract:
Nearly all private, government and non-governmental organizations that receive government funding to run social or health promotion programs in the United States are required to conduct program evaluations and to report findings to the funding agency. Reports are usually due at the end of a funding cycle and they may or may not have an influence on the continuation of program funding. The final evaluation report (FER), as the end-of-funding-cycle report is often called, generally relates the intervention and evaluation results of the funding period and has a dual purpose. It is considered an element of accountability and should give the program and its stakeholders direction for the future. All too often though, this is not the case. Evaluators have voiced myriad concerns about the many issues related to reports and their usage. In their study of a random sample of American Evaluation Association members, Torres et al. (1997) found that evaluators are generally discontent about reporting and about the fact that their reports are often misused or not used at all. Evaluation reports could be a valuable instrument for moving projects forward if stakeholders and project staff would make good use of evaluation findings. The Tobacco Control Evaluation Center (TCEC) (2006) at the University of California at Davis developed scoring measures for final report writing for over 100 local tobacco control projects in California but found 2007 reports lacking in quality. In 2010, it conducted a training campaign in the hope that the projects themselves, the funding government agency and TCEC may make better use of the reports. The response to the training call was overwhelming, and comparing scores from 2007 and 2010, participating agencies made statistically significant improvements but non-participants did not. Results relating to the mode of training were inconclusive. The pre- and post-score comparison proved to be a valuable measuring tool, and the 1-day face-to-face training was a useful training mode. (Contains 1 table.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Art Therapy; Public Schools; School Counselors; National Standards; School Counseling; Models; Comparative Analysis; Career Development; Individual Development; Social Development; Delivery Systems; Management Systems; Accountability

Abstract:
Art therapists must overcome systemic challenges in order to continue to provide art therapy services in U.S. public schools. An understanding of how art therapy programs fit within the national standards of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) and the ASCA National Model may help in this effort. This review article compares recently published literature on school art therapy with the guidelines set forth in the ASCA National Model. School art therapy programs can meet the core beliefs, philosophies, and missions that are currently identified with school counseling programs; however, evidence-based research is needed to validate school art therapy as an effective intervention. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Academic Achievement; School Effectiveness; Accountability; Achievement Gains; Data Analysis; Correlation; Educational Quality; Evaluation Methods; Scores; Mathematics Tests; Psychometrics; Grade 4; Grade 5; Elementary School Students

Abstract:
Accountability systems that measure student learning rather than student achievement have the potential to more accurately evaluate school quality. However, one methodological concern has remained surprisingly absent from discussions of value-added modeling. Standardized assessments that exhibit either positive or negative correlations between achievement and achievement gains will produce value-added estimates that contradict actual patterns of school effectiveness. This study uses student-level state assessment data to explore the ramifications of these relationships for value-added indicators. Within this state's assessment, the author finds strong negative relationships between achievement and subsequent achievement gains--initially low-scoring students appeared to gain more than their high-achieving peers. Because students are not randomly assigned to schools by achievement, these child-level correlations strongly influence school-level value-added estimates, in some cases quite dramatically. However, the manifestation of these relationships varies across four different analytic techniques, depending on how a particular approach modeled the associations between initial status and gain. (Contains 6 tables, 2 figures and 4 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Higher Education; Student Financial Aid; Accountability; Federal Aid; Costs; Educational Policy; Debt (Financial); Accreditation (Institutions); Futures (of Society); Performance Based Assessment; Presidents

Abstract:
For 40 years, federal money has sustained higher education while enabling its worst tendencies. That is about to change. The end may have come on February 12, 2013, when President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address. "Skyrocketing costs," the president said, "price way too many young people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt." In a policy document released after the speech, the president proposed the most sweeping change in federal aid since the great debates of the early 1970s. In addition to value-driven accountability measures for colleges, he called for "establishing a new, alternative system of accreditation that would provide pathways for higher-education models and colleges to receive federal student aid based on performance and results." Against a backdrop of a growing number of reports on reforming financial aid, in a handful of words, the president had proposed nothing less than a postinstitutional future of higher education--one in which "colleges," as defined by other colleges, as defined by higher education itself, would no longer have a monopoly over the receipt of public funds. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Accountability; Beginning Teachers; Mathematics Education; Mathematics Instruction; Educational Practices; Elementary School Mathematics; Classroom Observation Techniques; Interviews; Curriculum Based Assessment; Intermode Differences; Educational Indicators; Inclusion; Classroom Techniques; Teaching Methods; Learning Disabilities; Academic Accommodations (Disabilities); Instructional Effectiveness; Achievement Gains

Abstract:
In this exploratory study, teachers' use of standards-based, discourse practices and their students' mathematics learning in inclusive elementary mathematics classrooms were examined. Two beginning teachers (one third-grade teacher, one fourth-grade teacher) and six students identified with disabilities or as low performing in mathematics participated in this study (three students from each classroom). Six classroom observations of teachers took place over 4 months focusing on a subset of indicators associated with Walshaw and Anthony's framework of mathematics classroom discourse practices. Follow-up interviews were also conducted. Curriculum-based and state-accountability measures were collected on the six target students in these settings. Different patterns of student performance emerged across the two classrooms in which teachers were observed using different types and degrees of standards-based discourse practices during mathematics lessons. Findings suggest indicators of effective mathematics teaching in inclusive general education classrooms to be validated by future research efforts. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Aesthetic Education; Educational Change; Neoliberalism; Urban Teaching; Urban Schools; Beginning Teachers; English Teachers; Secondary School Teachers; Accountability; Testing; Qualitative Research; Interviews; Ethnography; Social Justice; Theory Practice Relationship; Teacher Education

Abstract:
This article presents 7 years of qualitative research into the emerging understandings of a population of 456 beginning 7 to 12 urban teachers who supplied 130 participants who were enrolled in a total of 26 MSEd English Language Arts courses over 7 years. These were interviewed while teaching in urban schools focused primarily on testing and accountability systems, and their class writings were used to present seven of their voices in this study. The study investigates participant engagement in two theoretical frameworks emphasized in the courses: first, the neoliberal ideology of testing and accountability; second, the transactional tradition of aesthetic education. The study finds that education students need not passively acquiesce to neoliberal reforms, but can reclaim a culturally critical stance in their teaching. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Teacher Effectiveness; Early Childhood Education; Teacher Educators; Young Children; Accountability; Child Development; Teacher Education; Teacher Education Programs

Abstract:
The articles in this special issue make clear that the field of early education is characterized by a breadth and depth of knowledge unimaginable 200 years ago, even to someone as exceptional as Elizabeth Peabody. This radical feminist used early 19th-century ideas of the "woman's sphere" to suggest that a career in early childhood education was "the ideal solution to the problem of what educated American women should do with their lives," and she credited Froebel's "genius" in identifying a way in which women could "assume a useful role in society". While some of the field's old ideas and traditions may no longer be in the children's or the field's best interests, others ought not be so easily dismissed. This article presents a commentary on the articles included in the special issue--although they help to make the author's case--and more her ongoing reflections on how early childhood teacher educators might better conduct their business. Some of these recommendations represent iterations of old competencies. Others represent challenges to traditional interpretations of their responsibilities that may strike some as disloyal, yet may prove instrumental to their continued efforts to successfully prepare future teachers for their work with increasingly diverse classrooms of young children. These recommendations also represent another aim which is getting a seat at the "big table" where decisions are made about what constitutes ethical and effective teaching and teacher education. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Academic Achievement; Mathematics Achievement; Program Effectiveness; Foreign Countries; Feedback (Response); Family Characteristics; Numeracy; Case Studies; Comparative Analysis; Models; Outcomes of Education; Scores; Accountability; Achievement Gains; Reading Achievement; Grade 6; Grade 4; Grade 5; Elementary School Students

Abstract:
Educational effectiveness research often appeals to "value-added models (VAM)" to gauge the impact of schooling on student learning net of the effect of student background variables. A huge amount of cross-sectional studies do not, however, meet VAM's requirement for longitudinal data. "Contextualised attainment models (CAM)" measure the influence of schools on student outcomes controlling for family background characteristics in cross-sectional studies. It is argued that the latter are adequate substitutes for student prior attainment. Drawing on data from a 3-point longitudinal study in the city of Berlin, Germany (n = 3,074), reading and mathematics achievement of primary students are investigated to assess effectiveness measures of schools. Estimates are compared for a 3-level growth curve analysis (VAM), a hierarchical linear model controlling for background characteristics (CAM), and one additionally controlling for prior achievement scores (prior attainment model). The article contributes to the enhancement of a feedback culture for cross-sectional study results. (Contains 5 tables, 5 figures and 6 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
School Choice; Predictor Variables; Incentives; Classification; Educational Policy; Academic Achievement; Scores; Comparative Analysis; Class Size; Accountability

Abstract:
We seek out the good institutional features of the European choice policies that can enhance both equity and efficiency at the system level. For causality analysis we construct the typology of 28 European educational systems by using fuzzy-set analysis. We combine five independent variables to indicate institutional features of school choice policy: availability of choice, tracking, school variability, empowerment of parents, and financial incentive schemes supporting choice policy. Findings show that the most important complements producing efficiency are "no-choice" with "no-tracking" and "choice" together with "tracking" and "school variability." "No-choice" with "no-tracking" can also lead to more equity. (Contains 5 figures, 4 tables and 5 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Teacher Effectiveness; Accountability; Program Effectiveness; Stakeholders; Performance Based Assessment; Teacher Education; Teacher Education Programs; Graduates; Educational Change; Politics of Education; Educational Policy; Policy Analysis; Outcomes of Education; College Outcomes Assessment; Position Papers; College Programs; Curriculum Evaluation; Teacher Education Curriculum; Influences; Best Practices

Abstract:
Currently there are multiple teacher education reform policies being proposed, piloted, and debated at a variety of levels and by various interest groups, stakeholders, and policy-makers. Along with an unprecedented sense of urgency about these important goals, what most U.S. reforms have in common is increased accountability. Using a discourse approach to policy analysis, which we label "the politics of policy," this article analyzes three complicated and evolving contemporary accountability initiatives in the United States: (1) "Our Future, Our Teachers," which is the Obama administration's proposed blueprint for the reform of teacher education programs, in particular its call for the assessment of preparation programs based on the impact of program graduates on their eventual K-12 students' test scores; (2) the "Teacher Performance Assessment," which is a nationally accessible instrument for assessing beginning teaching performance currently being piloted in 25 states through a partnership of Stanford University and Pearson Education, Inc.; and, (3) "Building Better Teachers: A National Review of Teacher Preparation Programs," which is an evaluation of collegiate teacher preparation programs conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality with results to appear in "U.S. News and World Report." Our analysis makes clear that policy (and policy proposals) is unavoidably political, and that policy-making involves contentious debate as well as complicated political maneuvering and strategies, including resistance and litigation. (Contains 1 figure.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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