• Measurement and Assessment in Teaching.. Summary

A summary of the book “Measurement and Assessment in Teaching” by Robert L. Linn & M.David Miller,

Questions and answers

Chapter 1: Educational Testing and Assessment: Context, Issues, and Trends

1.	Briefly describe the major components and requirements of No Child Left Behind. Be sure to include the goals of the legislation that must be met by 2014 and what might be done regarding schools.
	The testing required by the NCLB Act is used to hold schools, districts, and states accountable for student achievement. The law requires states to set performance standards that are used to establish annual "adequate yearly progress" targets that ensure that all students will perform at the "proficient" level or above by the 2013-2014 school year. Schools that do not meet yearly goals two years in a row are placed into a "needs improvement" category. Tutoring, expanded time for instruction either after school or during the summer, and public school choice may be provided to students in low-performing schools. When initially identified as "needs improvement," schools must develop improvement plans, and districts must provide public school choice. Schools that continue to be identified are subject to more severe sanctions, leading finally to restructuring and the replacement of teachers and school administrators.
2.	NCLB is intended to include all students. Describe the special needs and/or accommodations that are allowed under NCLB to allow that all students meet proficiency goals.

• Writing a Mission Statement

·        A Mission Statement is an agreed upon set of declarations concerning the purpose of an organization.

·        Mission statements vary in length and format, and although your team is welcome to approach this task in any way they want, this primer will walk you through a process that should produce a mission statement that will both serve the school and simplify the accreditation process.

·        To create your Mission Statement, this primer will suggest a process that starts with 1) brainstorming components, followed by 2) prioritizing and finalizing these components, 3) choosing a format, 4) writing the mission statement, and ultimately gaining consensus from the school community.

I- Brainstorming Activity – The brainstorming activity is nothing more than the mission writers responding to the following four questions until they exhaust favorable ideas:

• Approaches & methods for institutional analysis

Approaches & methods for institutional analysis

How to use the hub model

•         List the agencies

•         Identify the functions that they do / should do (enabling, service provider, client)

Ø this may mean separating a whole agency into parts by function (eg: Min of Ag)

Ø Consider the nature of the relationships between the functions: what are they, what should they be?

•         Try drawing them on the triangle

•         Include flows of funds with arrows

How to use the 4Rs

• Introduction to Western Methods of Policy Analysis, Diné Policy Institute

What is Policy?

§  “advice that relates to public decisions..” which are also “informed by social values.” (Weimer and Vining, p.23)

§  “Policy Analysis is client-oriented advice relevant to public decisions and informed by social values.” (Ibid. p.24)

§  “Policy analysis goes beyond personal decision making.” (Bardach, Intro)

§  Policy analysis is a social and political activity. (Bardach, Intro)

§  What is Policy?