ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Key Performance Indicators: From Promise to Payoff. The Productivity for Results Series No. 2
Author: Casserly, Michael
Date: 2014-02-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Performance,Educational Indicators,Urban Schools,Public Schools,Benchmarking,Academic Achievement,Educational Finance,Data Collection,School Districts,Surveys,Interviews,Administrators,Change Strategies,Governance,Human Resources,Educational Technology,Budgets,Decision Making,Best Practices

This paper draws upon the expertise of two leading educators, Michael Casserly, director of the Council of the Great City Schools, and Michael Eugene, chief operating officer of the Orange County Public Schools in Florida. They outline a set of key performance indicators that some urban districts use to benchmark the results of their operating systems against those of other major districts. As the pair concludes, the goal is to spread these measures into other districts and start applying the indicators to academic performance. The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) system is now in use, at least in part, in the vast majority of the nation's big-city school systems. It is beginning to produce efficiencies and savings in a number of these urban school districts, and is helping to identify best practices. Moreover, it has been evaluated by an independent third-party. It is expanding into the academic arena, and it is being rolled out for the use of other school systems across the nation. Still, there is much more potential to realize. This report summarizes some of the ongoing work on the system, its results to date, and what is envisioned for its future. [A list of resources is included.]
Improving the Success of Middle Grade Students. Middle School Matters Program No. 2
Author: Belfanz, Robert
Date: 2013-05-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Middle School Students,Academic Achievement,Educational Experience,Instructional Leadership,Expectation,Discipline Policy,Educational Improvement,Behavior Problems,Behavior Change,Educational Strategies

A student's experience in the middle grades is a selection of classes they go through in a day. If they experience inconsistent expectations across those classes, they and the school will struggle to achieve high outcomes. Middle grade students need to have common behavioral and academic expectations, recognitions, and consequences throughout the school day in all their classes. This report provides questions answered by Dr. Balfanz on what school leaders might ask while providing instructional leadership, observing classrooms, and working with teachers.. [A list of resources is included.]
How Learning and Cognitive Science Can Improve Student Outcomes. Middle School Matters Program No. 1
Author: Graesser, Art
Date: 2013-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Middle School Students,Best Practices,Teaching Methods,Cognitive Science,Learning Processes,Educational Principles,Educational Practices,Skill Development,Feedback (Response),Problem Solving,Maintenance,Mathematics Instruction

There are research-based principles and practices from the learning and cognitive sciences that can be applied to all content areas in middle grades education to improve student outcomes. Even teachers of courses like Physical Education can consider these strategies for assisting students in remembering rules of sports, different sports strategies, etc. More importantly, these principles and practices can provide study skills for students to prepare them for the increased rigor of high school coursework, where they may experience final exams for the first time. Therefore, the more these principles and practices can become adopted and implemented school-wide, the more proficient students will become in their use. This will enable middle grade students to have the skills they need not only for high school success, but also for success in postsecondary education and/or future careers. This report provides few questions school leaders might ask while providing instructional leadership, observing classrooms, and working with teachers, and how Dr. Graesser would respond based on his knowledge of research in the learning and cognitive sciences.
Standardized Testing in Alabama and Nationwide. Updated
Author: Rains, Thomas
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Standardized Tests,Testing,Academic Achievement,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Academic Standards,State Standards,Elementary Secondary Education,Educational Assessment,College Entrance Examinations

Standardized testing serves several purposes. Tests provide feedback on a student's performance. They can help teachers understand student achievement relative to class objectives. Tests can also help administrators identify excellent teachers and those who need more professional support. And, likewise, they can help administrators and policymakers identify which schools are high performing and which are not serving students effectively. Alabama's previous generation of standardized tests provided a skewed picture on all of these fronts. In short, previous tests only considered Alabama's students performance as it related to their peers in the state, but the new tests will broaden this horizon. Alabama is implementing a new generation of standardized tests to provide more clarity, however the new assessments will still only provide a snapshot of student performance at one point in time. It will take much more work and research to implement any assessment that captures student growth modeling and provides more than just an annual snapshot. This memo provides a brief overview of the standardized testing landscape in Alabama, especially as it relates to the College and Career Ready Standards in our state and the Common Core State Standards nationally. [This report was originally released December 2013.]
Academic Standards in Alabama
Author: A+ Education Partnership
Date: 2014-02-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Academic Standards,State Standards,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Public Education,Educational Assessment,Standardized Tests,Elementary Secondary Education,College Entrance Examinations

Education policymakers and educators in Alabama are committed to improving the state's public education system to ensure that students gain the knowledge and skills they need to graduate from high school ready for real life. The state is on the path to implementing higher academic standards--the College and Career Ready Standards--which lay a foundation to ensure that classroom instruction across Alabama provides students with real world skills and knowledge in reading, math, and writing. There has been a large amount of conflicting information distributed about Alabama's College and Career Ready Standards based on the Common Core State Standards. This brief accomplishes the following: (1) answers numerous questions and corrects misinformation that is being spread about Alabama's College and Career Ready Standards and the Common Core State Standards; (2) clarifies the role of academic standards in Alabama and the recent adoption of the College and Career Ready Standards; (3) includes information on the committees of educators and experts that reviewed the standards with great care prior to implementation, the difference between standards and curriculum, and how the standards build a more foundational path to success with ACT assessments and college/career preparedness.
Alabama Public Education at a Glance
Author: Rains, Thomas
Date: 2014-11-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Public Education,College Readiness,Career Readiness,High School Graduates,School Demography,Achievement Gap,Educational Finance,Income,Expenditures,Preschool Education,Elementary Secondary Education,National Competency Tests,Gender Differences,Racial Differences,Academic Achievement

A+ Education Partnership is a statewide, non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to shape policy, improve teaching and learning, and engage communities in ongoing conversations about the best ways to create great schools for every child and build a bright future for Alabama. &quot;Alabama Public Education at a Glance&quot; provides in tabular form: (1) data on college and career readiness of high school graduates; (2) demographics for school systems; (3) breakdowns of various achievement gaps; (4) summaries of education revenues and expenditures; and (5) pre-k information on how Alabama stacks up compared to other states. A+ has compiled this data to provide information on the state of education in Alabama, using the most current data available. This report will be updated annually.
Inspire… Challenge… Partner… It's What We Do
Author: A+ Education Partnership
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Public Education,Partnerships in Education,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Faculty Development,Advanced Placement Programs,Educational Policy,Research and Instruction Units,Organizational Objectives,Elementary Secondary Education

Effective public education is necessary for a democratic, prosperous, and civil society. Alabama's employers need a highly qualified workforce to sustain the state's economic growth. At the same time, we live in a global society where digital technologies are rapidly redefining jobs, communities, and opportunities for students. While Alabama is making great progress, too many students leave high school unprepared. All Alabama students must read well, write well, and be able to think critically to problem-solve. To meet these challenges, A+ Education Partnership shapes policy, and through its two divisions--the Alabama Best Practices Center and A+ College Ready--supports educators across the state to ensure students gain the knowledge and skills to be productive, creative citizens. Its sole purpose and overall goal is to inspire, challenge, and partner with Alabama education stakeholders, and to do whatever it takes to insure that every Alabama student graduates college- and career-ready. This brochure provides details on the following: (1) A+ Education Partnership's Historic Milestones; (2) The Alabama Best Practices Center, which connects educators to cutting-edge and proven education practices, and provides intentional opportunities for educators to learn together and from each other; (3) A+ College Ready, which helps schools better prepare students for college and careers by providing professional development for all Advanced Placement and Pre-AP teachers in the state; (4) A+ Policy and Engagement; (5) A+ Goals--expanding what works; encouraging innovation; raising the bar; and partnering for progress; and (6) A+ Board of Directors and Staff.
Building the Talent Pipeline: Policy Recommendations for &quot;The Condition of STEM 2013.&quot; BHEF/ACT Policy Brief
Author: ACT, Inc.
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: STEM Education,Educational Policy,Higher Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Career Development,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Mathematics Education,Science Education,Academic Standards,Academic Achievement,Females,Ethnic Groups,Professional Development,Definitions,Skill Development,Academic Persistence,Majors (Students),Disproportionate Representation,Minority Group Students,Career Exploration,Labor Force Development,Employment Opportunities,School Business Relationship,Partnerships in Education,Undergraduate Study,Government Role,Federal Aid,Introductory Courses,Educational Finance

ACT has been a leader in measuring college and career readiness trends for decades. Each August, ACT releases &quot;The Condition of College &amp; Career Readiness&quot; (www.act.org/newsroom/data/2013), our annual report on the progress of the ACT-tested graduating class relative to college readiness. Nationally, 54.3% of the 2013 graduating class took the ACT® college readiness assessment. The continued increase of test takers enhances the breadth and depth of the data pool, providing a comprehensive picture of the current college readiness levels of the graduating class as well as offering a glimpse of the emerging national educational pipeline. It also allows us to review various aspects of the ACT-tested 2013 graduating class. In February 2014, ACT released &quot;The Condition of STEM 2013&quot; (www.act.org/stemcondition/13/), a report series that reviews the graduating class in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-related fields. This report, &quot;Building the Talent Pipeline: Policy Recommendations for The Condition of STEM 2013,&quot; is a collaboration between ACT and the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF). The report was created to offer recommendations relative to the results of &quot;The Condition of STEM 2013.&quot; The recommendations fall into three key markets: higher education, business, and government. We hope this report starts discussions and creates actionable steps to improve achievement levels in STEM-related fields. As a nation, we need to improve the STEM education pipeline, moving more individuals into the STEM jobs that will drive our economy in the future. [For &quot;The Condition of STEM 2013,&quot; see ED546778.]
STEM Educator Pipeline: Doing the Math on Recruiting Math and Science Teachers. Issue Brief
Author: ACT, Inc.
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: STEM Education,Teacher Recruitment,Science Teachers,Mathematics Teachers,Teacher Competencies,Educational Quality,Career Choice,College Graduates,College Students,Student Interests,College Readiness,Majors (Students),Competence,Science Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Teaching (Occupation),College Entrance Examinations

The proposed federal STEM Teacher Pathway program seeks to produce 100,000 new, high-quality math and science teachers in the next decade. How difficult will the goal be to achieve? This report uses data from the ACT® college readiness assessment to examine the feasibility of producing 100,000 high-quality math and science teachers in the next decade and finds that there is an insufficient number of graduates interested in and capable of math and science teaching to meet the 100,000 high-quality teacher goal. Of the 1.3 million 2012 ACT-tested graduates who tested during either their junior or senior year and were either &quot;fairly sure&quot; or &quot;very sure&quot; of their potential career occupation, only 0.25% identified that they wanted to be math teachers and 0.06% wanted to be science teachers. Due to the shortage of interested and capable graduates, the report highlights two possible groups to target for recruitment--STEM-capable students interested in education and STEM-capable students undecided of their college major--and highlights the potential recruitment strategies and challenges.
Communicating College and Career Readiness through Proficiency Standards. Issue Brief
Author: Croft, Michelle
Date: 2014-06-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: College Readiness,Career Readiness,Academic Standards,Competency Based Education,Case Studies,Educational Policy,Educational Objectives,Information Dissemination,Organizational Communication,Educational Change,Scores,Progress Monitoring,Educational Planning,Alignment (Education),State Standards,Educational Assessment,Standardized Tests,Achievement Tests,Expectation

The need to adequately prepare all students for the next stage in their lives has led a number of states to adopt new educational standards that reflect the expectation that all high school students will be ready for college and career when they graduate. The report &quot;Communicating College and Career Readiness through Proficiency Standards&quot; describes how three states (Kentucky, New York, and Florida) and the District of Columbia have already transitioned their state assessments to reflect college and career readiness and how they have correspondingly determined performance and proficiency standards to match. Lessons learned from these examples may help other states currently negotiating their own transitions. The report offers states the following policy recommendations: (1) Reinforce why college and career readiness is the right goal for all students; (2) Set proficiency standards using empirical data that indicate whether a student is on target for college and career readiness; and (3) Develop--and carry out--a communications plan to prepare the public for a short-term decline in average state scores as a new baseline is being established. Following these recommendations will help states navigate the transition to a culture in which student readiness for college and career becomes the &quot;gold standard&quot; by which educational progress is measured.
Technical Manual. The ACT®
Author: ACT, Inc.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Guides - Non-Classroom
Subjects: College Entrance Examinations,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Standards,Benchmarking,Test Norms,Scaling,Equated Scores,Test Reliability,Test Validity

This manual contains technical information about the ACT® college readiness assessment. The principal purpose of this manual is to document the technical characteristics of the ACT in light of its intended purposes. ACT regularly conducts research as part of the ongoing formative evaluation of its programs. The research is intended to ensure that the programs remain technically sound. The content of this manual responds to requirements of the testing industry as established in the &quot;Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement&quot; (NCME Ad Hoc Committee on the Development of a Code of Ethics, 1995), the &quot;Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing&quot; (AERA, APA, &amp; NCME, 1999), and the &quot;Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education&quot; (Joint Committee on Testing Practices, 2004). This manual is divided into six chapters. The chapters include the following information: (1) An overview of the ACT, its history, its philosophical basis, and the population it serves; (2) Detailed description of the ACT tests; (3) Description of ACT's College and Career Readiness Standards and ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks; (4) Technical characteristics, such as norms, scaling, equating, and reliabilities, of the ACT tests; (5) Validity evidence for the most common uses of the ACT tests; and (6) Description of the noncognitive components of the ACT.
Will Courts Shape Value-Added Methods for Teacher Evaluation? ACT Working Paper Series. WP-2014-2
Author: Croft, Michelle
Date: 2014-04-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Evaluation,Teacher Effectiveness,Academic Achievement,Achievement Gains,Court Litigation,Validity

As more states begin to adopt teacher evaluation systems based on value-added measures, legal challenges have been filed both seeking to limit the use of value-added measures (&quot;Cook v. Stewart&quot;) and others seeking to require more robust evaluation systems (&quot;Vergara v. California&quot;). This study reviews existing teacher evaluation systems and examines validity evidence supporting the use of value-added scores as part of the teacher evaluation. We discuss key aspects of ongoing teacher evaluation lawsuits in California and Florida and assess issues for evaluating the legality of teacher evaluation systems.
Development of Predicted Paths for ACT Aspire Score Reports. WP-2014-06
Author: Allen, Jeff
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: College Readiness,Career Readiness,Achievement Tests,Scores,Longitudinal Studies,Prediction,Grade 3,Grade 4,Grade 5,Grade 6,Grade 7,Grade 8,Grade 9,Grade 10,Grade 11,Mathematics Tests,Reading Tests,Science Tests,Writing Tests,Language Tests,Statistical Analysis

This report focuses on the initial development of the predicted score paths for ACT Aspire reporting. The paths provide predicted score ranges for the next two years--as well as predicted ACT score ranges for tests administered at grades 9 and 10. Longitudinal ACT Aspire data for students tested in spring 2013 and spring 2014, as well as historical data from ACT's college and career readiness assessment system, are used to develop the predicted paths. Coverage rates of the predicted paths are examined, and proposed uses and limitations of the predicted paths are discussed.
Catching up to College and Career Readiness in Kentucky. ACT Working Paper Series. WP-2014-04
Author: Dougherty, Chrys
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: College Readiness,College Preparation,Career Readiness,Grade 4,Grade 8,Scores,Reading Tests,Mathematics Tests,Science Tests,At Risk Students,Low Income Groups,African American Students,Hispanic American Students,Special Education,English Language Learners,Advantaged,Achievement Gap,Educational Policy,Educational Practices,Disadvantaged,Ethnicity,Gender Differences,Benchmarking,College Entrance Examinations,State Standards,Longitudinal Studies,Elementary School Students,Secondary School Students,State Policy,Academic Achievement

This report focuses on the extent to which students who are academically far off track in fourth or eighth grade in Kentucky catch up by eighth or eleventh grade. We studied three recent cohorts of Kentucky students whose eighth-grade ACT Explore® scores were more than one standard deviation below the ACT Explore benchmark scores associated with being on track. We found that 5% or fewer of the students who were far off track in eighth grade attained the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks® by the spring of eleventh grade. We did a similar analysis for two cohorts of students beginning in fourth grade, using scores on the Kentucky Core Content Tests in reading, mathematics, and science in grade four and ACT Explore scores in the same subjects in grade eight, and found that catching-up rates ranged from 7% in mathematics to 12% in science. We also found that students from at-risk groups--those who are low-income, African American, Hispanic, English language learners or in special education--have lower catching up rates than their more advantaged peers. These results are of special concern because a large percentage of students from those groups are far off track in fourth and eighth grade. These findings should underscore the importance of policies and practices that focus on getting students off to a good start in the early grades. These practices are especially important for disadvantaged students. Ongoing research should identify practices that help to accomplish this goal, and state and local policy should support efforts to disseminate and implement those practices. The following are appended: (1) Narrowing of Scale Score Gaps in Grades 8-11; and (2) Results by Income, Ethnicity, and Gender.
Do Stricter High School Graduation Requirements Improve College Readiness? ACT Working Paper Series. WP-2014-1
Author: Buddin, Richard
Date: 2014-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Graduation Requirements,School Districts,Student Motivation,Outcomes of Education,College Attendance,Curriculum Design,High School Students,Academic Achievement,Trend Analysis,Mathematics Education,Science Education,Educational Trends,Educational Policy,Advanced Courses,Educational Change,Academic Ability,STEM Education,College Readiness,College Entrance Examinations,Statistical Analysis

In recent years, state policymakers have increased high school course requirements--particularly in mathematics and science. This research examines whether stricter requirements have been effective at improving student outcomes. Student-level evidence from a state's recent reform suggests that higher requirements had little effect on trends in course-taking, student performance, and college enrollment. Our evidence suggests that state policies that simply raise math and science graduation requirement may not be effective alone for improving student outcomes. This shortcoming may reflect that the laws primarily affect lower-ability and less-motivated students who often have weaker preparation for advanced coursework. Districts and states may require greater efforts at preparing these students for advanced coursework or redesigning the curriculum to improve student outcomes.