Testing, Teaching, and Learning A Guide for States and School Districts Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment Richard F. Elmore and Robert Rothman, Editors Board on Testing and Assessment Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education National Research Council NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1999 Notice Committee Preface Acknowledgments Contents Executive Summary NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. The study was supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts (award 96000217-000), The Spencer Foundation (award 199700156), The William T. Grant Foundation (award 97179797), and the U.S. Department of Education (award R305U960001). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project. International Standard Book Number 0-309-06534-8 Suggested citation: National Research Council (1999). Testing, Teaching, and Learning: A Guide for States and School Districts. Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment, Richard F. Elmore and Robert Rothman, editors. Board on Testing and Assessment, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Additional copies of this report are available from National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20418. Call (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area). This report is also available online at http://www.nap.edu Printed in the United States of America Copyright 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COMMITTEE ON TITLE I TESTING AND ASSESSMENT RICHARD F. ELMORE (Chair), Graduate School of Education, Harvard University EVA L. BAKER, Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, University of California, Los Angeles RUBEN A. CARRIEDO, San Diego City Schools URSULA CASANOVA, College of Education, Arizona State University ROBERTA J. FLEXER, Department of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder ELLEN C. GUINEY, Boston Plan for Excellence in Public Schools KATI P. HAYCOCK, The Education Trust, Washington, D.C. JOSEPH F. JOHNSON, JR., Collaborative for School Improvement, Charles A. Dana Center, University of Texas at Austin SHARON LYNN KAGAN, Child Study Center, Yale University FAYNEESE MILLER, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University JESSIE MONTANO, Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning, St. Paul P. DAVID PEARSON, College of Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing STEPHEN W. RAUDENBUSH, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor LAUREN B. RESNICK, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh WARREN SIMMONS, Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University CHARLENE G. TUCKER, Connecticut Department of Education, Hartford ROBERT ROTHMAN, Study Director DOROTHY MAJEWSKI, Project Assistant BOARD ON TESTING AND ASSESSMENT ROBERT L. LINN (Chair), School of Education, University of Colorado, Boulder CARL F. KAESTLE (Vice Chair), Department of Education, Brown University RICHARD C. ATKINSON, President, University of California PAUL J. BLACK, School of Education, King's College, London, England RICHARD P. DURAN, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara CHRISTOPHER F. EDLEY, JR., Harvard Law School, Harvard University RONALD FERGUSON, John F. Kennedy School of Public Policy, Harvard University ROBERT M. HAUSER, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin PAUL W. HOLLAND, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley RICHARD M. JAEGER, Center for Educational Research and Evaluation, University of North Carolina BARBARA M. MEANS, SRI International, Menlo Park, California LORRAINE McDONNEL, Department of Political Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara KENNETH PEARLMAN, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Warren, New Jersey ANDREW C. PORTER, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin, Madison CATHERINE E. SNOW, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University WILLIAM L. TAYLOR, Attorney at Law, Washington, D.C. WILLIAM T. TRENT, Associate Chancellor, University of Illinois, Champaign VICKI VANDAVEER, The Vandaveer Group, Inc., Houston, Texas LAURESS L. WISE, Human Resources Research Organization, Alexandria, Virginia KENNETH I. WOLPIN, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania MICHAEL J. FEUER, Director VIOLA C. HOREK, Administrative Associate LISA ALSTON, Administrative Assistant Preface Standards, assessment, and accountability have become a common concern of public policy toward education at the federal, state, and local levels. The reasons for this concern are deeply embedded in the politics and economics of the education sector over the past two decades--rising public expenditures, increasing centralization and equalization of education funding, and increasing concern among policy makers at all levels of government for the health and competitiveness of the American economy. Whatever one's position on the specifics, there is no avoiding the imperative for clearer definitions of the outcomes of schooling and clearer accounting for results. In the midst of this debate, in 1994, the Congress reauthorized Title I, the largest single federal program for elementary and secondary education in the United States. The congressional debate around reauthorization of Title I was, in many ways, a reflection of the larger public debate that had been occurring around that time in thousands of local school boards, dozens of state legislatures, and many national commissions. In particular, the debate focused on the terms and conditions under which state agencies, local school districts, and schools would be accountable for the academic learning of disadvantaged students, who were the intended beneficiaries of Title I's supplemental funding. The 1994 amendments substantially shifted the focus of Title I, away from treating Title I recipients as a separate class of beneficiaries with their own particular needs and toward an emphasis on bringing educationally disadvantaged students into the academic mainstream, judging their academic success in the same terms as those of all other students. The 1994 amendments also brought Title I into alignment with the growing movement toward standards-based reform at the state and local levels, which focuses on setting high and clear goals for student academic learning and judging schools on the basis of their contributions to students' progress toward those goals. In spring 1995, just before the reauthorization of Title I was set to take effect, the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council convened a workshop on the implications of Title I's new testing and assessment requirements for states and localities. This workshop, involving participants from federal, state, and local education agencies, as well as representatives of the research and testing community, surfaced a number of difficult technical and practical issues related to the implementation of the new requirements. As an outgrowth of this discussion, and with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Spencer Foundation, and the W.T. Grant Foundation, the National Research Council formed the Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment to look into these issues in greater depth. The committee began its work in November 1997. The Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment was chartered for an explicitly practical purpose: to provide policy guidance to states and localities in using testing and assessment to improve the academic learning of students who are the intended beneficiaries of Title I. The committee was charged to assess research bearing on the use of testing and assessment for accountability purposes, to examine the experience of states and localities in this domain, and to develop a "decision framework that incorporates technical quality, effects on teaching and learning, costs and benefits, fairness and other criteria for evaluating assessment strategies." Hence, the committee's primary concern has been to provide practical guidance to states and localities in the design and implementation of standards-based assessments and accountability mechanisms, consistent with both state and local policy and with the requirements of Title I. Reflecting its orientation toward practical guidance, the committee's membership represents a cross-section of expertise on testing and assessment issues, from state and local practitioners to academic researchers, and the full range of practical and conceptual concerns related to Title I assessment. As the committee's work progressed, we came to a common understanding of the daunting task confronting states and localities in their attempts to create new forms of standards-based improvement and accountability in Title I. We agreed, for example, to focus on broad policy guidance to states and localities, organized around specific problems that any standards, assessment, and accountability system would have to solve, allowing for substantial variation and creativity in crafting specific solutions appropriate to specific state and local contexts. So this report focuses on "mid-range" advice, specific enough to provide useful guidance for policy makers and practitioners, broad enough to accommodate a wide range of solutions adapted to specific contexts. We also broadened the initial charge slightly to include discussion of issues of instruction and professional development for teachers and administrators in addition to issues of assessment and accountability. It became clear to us, as we explored the practical implications of Title I assessment and accountability, that the construction of assessment and accountability systems cannot be isolated from their purposes, which are to improve the quality of instruction and ultimately the learning of students. So we were inevitably drawn into the relationship between assessment and accountability issues and issues of large-scale improvement in teaching and learning. In the five years or so since the reauthorization of Title I, progress on the assessment and accountability requirements of the law have been highly uneven. The 1994 law envisioned that by the year 2000 all states would have put in place content and performance standards, aligned with assessments of student performance, and coupled with systems for holding schools accountable for student learning. As the year 2000 and the next reauthorization of Title I approach, it is now clear that many states and localities are still struggling to meet the basic requirements of the law; some states and localities are meeting the requirements but having difficulties connecting assessments to a broad-scale strategy of instructional improvement; and some states have met the requirements of the law but discovered a new generation of problems related to the maintenance and improvement of their assessment and accountability systems. The ambitious goals of the 1994 law are, in other words, still a work in progress in the field. This report is designed, to the extent possible, to speak to the entire range of states and districts, from the least to the most advanced. We also speak from the perspective that the struggle for increased focus and accountability in public education is a long-term project that will extend well beyond the present debate. We think our advice will be durable over the longer term, as public debate continues. Because the implementation of Title I assessment is still a work in progress, the research available to the committee was limited. We have drawn on a broad body of research on testing and assessment issues generally, as well as the reports of previous NRC committees on specific questions of test development and utilization. But the practical nature of our charge and the limits of the evidence available to us have meant that we have also had to draw on the practical experience of committee members and outside experts in crafting our advice. Hence, this report relies heavily on expert advice from the field, in addition to scientific research. Our hope is that state and local practitioners and policy makers will use this report as a guide to their continuing decisions in the development and improvement of new systems of assessment and accountability in Title I. It is not a simple template that prescribes a single approach or a single set of solutions. It is a framework, designed to lay out the major problems involved in the design of assessment and accountability systems, the knowledge that research and experience bring to bear on these problems, and the range of possible solutions to the problems. The framework also assumes that the purpose of assessment and accountability systems is to improve the quality of instruction in schools and school systems, rather than simply to measure and report school effectiveness. Richard F. Elmore, Chair Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council. Acknowledgments      For all the reasons stated in the preface, this report could not have happened without support from a number of people, and the committee is grateful for their contributions. We want first of all to acknowledge our sponsors, who made the project possible and kept it going. At the U.S. Department of Education, Valena Plisko, Margaret McNeely, and Collette Roney showed a continuing interest in the project and kept us apprised of events and publications that would assist us in our work.      At the Pew Charitable Trusts, Robert B. Schwartz and C. Kent McGuire were instrumental in helping get the project off the ground. Their successor as education program officer, Edward F. Reidy, Jr., not only continued to support the project but also, during one meeting, donned his old Kentucky associate commissioner hat and helped the committee think through some of the nettlesome design issues involved in assessment and accountability at the state level. Sadly, Ed passed away shortly before this book went to press. We will miss his wisdom and his commitment to education reform.      At the Spencer Foundation, Mark Rigdon was an enthusiastic supporter of the work. At the William T. Grant Foundation, the former president, Beatrix Hamburg, helped nurture the project, and her successor, Karen Hein, maintained the support.      The committee was also aided greatly by individuals who participated in our meetings and helped us understand the complex issues involved in designing and implementing standards-based systems. Mary Jean LeTendre, director of compensatory education programs at the U.S. Department of Education, and Edward D. Roeber, then the director of the state education assessment center at the Council of Chief State School Officers, provided us with an overview of the state of play in Title I at the federal and state levels, respectively.      At our second meeting, a panel of educators from the school, district, and state levels described for us how tests were used at their sites. These were: Peter Behuniak of the Connecticut State Department of Education, Susanne Murphy of the Norwich (CT) Public Schools, Gloria Woods and Mary Russo of the Boston Public Schools, Mitchell Chester of the School District of Philadelphia, and Brenda Steele of Community District 2 in New York City. Three testing programs also lent us materials to review: Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, New Standards, and the Connecticut State Department of Education.      At our third meeting, the committee heard from a panel of researchers and practitioners on the design issues involved in establishing assessments and accountability mechanisms. These were: Joan L. Herman of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles; James P. Spillane of Northwestern University; Edward Chittenden of the Educational Testing Service, Edward Reidy of the Pew Charitable Trusts (and formerly of Kentucky), and Lynn Winters of the Long Beach (CA) Unified School District.      The committee also commissioned several papers to address some critical areas in the research literature. Karen K. Wixson of the University of Michigan conducted an analysis of the alignment between standards and assessment in elementary reading in four states. J. Douglas Willms of the University of New Brunswick provided a helpful review of data analysis and reporting issues. M. Elizabeth Graue of the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted an extensive literature review of assessment issues, focusing on early childhood assessments. Mark D. Reckase of Michigan State University reviewed the measurement issues associated with the Title I statute.      The Board on Testing and Assessment, the division within the National Research Council that launched the study, also provided considerable support to the committee as it conducted its work. William Taylor, a member of the board, attended nearly all the committee's meetings and lent us his substantial knowledge about Title I and the implementation of standards-based reform. Robert L. Linn, the board's chair, and Carl Kaestle, the vice chair, were very helpful and supportive.      Within the National Research Council, a number of individuals supported the project and helped us keep it moving forward. Barbara Boyle Torrey, the executive director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, and Alexandra Wigdor, the director of the Division on Education, Labor, and Human Performance, enthusiastically backed the project and lent wisdom and advice at key stages. Michael J. Feuer, the director of the Board on Testing and Assessment, was the guiding force behind the project and provided substantive advice and moral support all the way through. Patricia Morison helped guide us through the end game of report completion, review, and publication. Viola Horek helped us manage the complex finances of the project and provided support in innumerable ways. Christine McShane's skillful editing kept our tenses straight and our metaphors from mixing.      Dorothy Majewski, the senior project assistant, handled the logistics of our work with incredible dexterity and even more incredible good humor. Her ability to plan and manage complex arrangements and respond to last-minute requests and changes made our work much easier and much more enjoyable.      This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC's Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.      We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report: Stephen B. Dunbar, Iowa Testing Programs, University of Iowa; William Firestone, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University; John F. Jennings, Center on Education Policy, Washington, D.C.; Margaret J. McLaughlin, Institute for the Study of Exceptional Children and Youth, University of Maryland; Daniel J. Reschly, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University; Alan Sheinker, Wyoming Department of Education, Cheyenne; and Richard Wagner, Department of Psychology, Florida State University. Although these individuals provided many constructive comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final content of this report rests solely with the authoring committee and the institution. Richard F. Elmore, Chair Robert Rothman, Study Director Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 1   INTRODUCTION 7 2   TOWARD A THEORY OF ACTION 15 3   STANDARDS FOR STUDENT PERFORMANCE 23 4   ASSESSMENTS OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE 42 5   MONITORING THE CONDITIONS OF INSTRUCTION 74 6   ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS 85 7   ACCOUNTABILITY 91 REFERENCES 102 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 111 INDEX 115 Executive Summary Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is the largest federal effort in precollegiate education. Created in 1965, when the federal government for the first time agreed to provide aid to elementary and secondary schools, the program was designed to level the playing field for disadvantaged students by providing financial assistance to their schools to compensate for the advantages enjoyed at schools with students from more affluent families. Now with an annual budget of approximately $8 billion--a fourth of the U.S. Department of Education's total annual budget--the program reaches more than 11 million students in two-thirds of all elementary schools and a fourth of all secondary schools. The 1994 reauthorization of Title I represented a profound shift in the program; perhaps the most far-reaching changes were in the assessment arena. Specifically, the law requires states to develop challenging standards for student performance and assessments that measure student performance against the standards. Significantly, the law states that the standards and assessments are expected to be the same for all students, regardless of whether they are eligible for Title I. Thus for the first time, the 1994 statute enshrines into law the principle that Title I students are to be held to the same standards as all other students. The record of states in implementing the new law shows that the 1994 statute poses a substantial challenge. For example, although nearly every state has adopted content standards, as the law requires, reviews of such standards show that their rigor and usefulness vary widely. In addition, only 21 states adopted performance standards by the law's deadline of spring 1998; the rest received waivers to allow them more time. The uneven pace of implementation has led some commentators to suggest revising the program substantially. The purpose of this document is to help states and districts meet the challenges posed by the law by guiding them in making appropriate decisions in implementing it. The Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment was charged with assessing research on the use of testing and assessment for accountability purposes, examining the experience of states and districts in this domain, and developing a "decision framework that incorporates technical quality, effects on teaching and learning, costs and benefits, fairness, and other criteria for evaluating assessment strategies." Our goal was to produce a practical guide for states and districts to use in developing the systems they were creating under the Title I law. As we studied the research, examined our own experiences, and listened to testimony from state, district, and school officials, the committee kept in mind three underlying principles. First, the committee agreed that the purpose of assessments and accountability is to contribute to and support high levels of student learning, particularly for disadvantaged students who have lagged behind their more advantaged peers. Second, the committee agreed that the education improvement system should be conceived of and implemented as just that--a system. That is, the system should consist of a number of components, at various levels (classroom, school, school district, and state), each of which plays a role in measuring and contributing to student learning, yet which are interrelated, not separate from one another. Third, the committee agreed that a hallmark of the state and district systems should be continuous improvement, at all levels--for students, for teachers and administrators, and for the system itself. For these and other reasons, the committee developed criteria not for the one best system--which does not exist--but for systems that continually change and adapt to new knowledge and circumstances. States and districts need to continually monitor the effects of their policies and practices to ensure that they are attaining their goals. The committee's framework is appropriate for states and districts just starting out on redesigning their education improvement system, as well as for states and districts that have had redesigned systems in place for several years. STANDARDS-BASED REFORM The provisions of the 1994 law carry with them an implied "theory of action" that suggests how implementing them will achieve the larger goal of improving student learning. As we understand it, the theory of action underlying the 1994 law is relatively straightforward. The centerpiece of the system is a set of challenging standards for student performance. By setting these standards for all students, states would hold high expectations for performance; these expectations would be the same regardless of students' backgrounds or where they attended school. Aligning assessments to the standards would allow students, parents, and teachers to monitor student performance against the standards. Providing flexibility to schools would permit them to make the instructional and structural changes needed for their students to reach the standards. And holding schools accountable for meeting the standards would create incentives to redesign instruction toward the standards and provide appropriate assistance to schools that need extra help. Embedded in this theory are a number of assumptions that experience since 1994 has led the committee to call into question. Chief among these assumptions is the idea that teachers would institute effective practices if they had both the freedom and the motivation to do so. In addition, we question the assumption that motivated teachers would seek guidance about improving instruction and districts would provide the support teachers need, largely by making more widely available the existing array of professional development opportunities. As a result of our examination of the theory of action, the committee concludes that the theory needs to be expanded to make explicit the link between standards, assessments, accountability, instruction, and learning. In our view, standards-based policies can affect student learning only if they are tied directly to efforts to build the capacity of teachers and administrators to improve instruction. AN EXPANDED THEORY What would such a system look like? In our view, the focus would be on teaching and learning, and the theory of action revolves around the links between all the elements and instruction. We call the expanded system an "education improvement system." The theory of action behind an education improvement system relies on information and responsibility. Everyone in the system--students, parents, teachers, administrators, and policy makers at every level--needs high-quality information about the quality of instruction and student performance. At the same time, everyone needs to be responsible for fulfilling his or her role in improving results. The key is transparency: everyone should know what it is expected, what they will be measured on, and what the results imply for what they should do next. Such a system is never "complete"; educators and policy makers continue to modify and adapt it as they learn from their own experience and the experience of others. States and districts need to examine each component, and the system as a whole, continually, to determine the extent to which it is achieving the goal of improving teaching and learning. In the following section we outline the criteria for the components. COMPONENTS OF AN EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT SYSTEM Standards Standards for student performance are at the heart of the system. Standards set the expectations for student learning, and signal that all students, regardless of background or where they happen to attend school, are expected to demonstrate high levels of knowledge and skill. In addition, they focus the attention of everyone in the system on the results schooling is expected to achieve--academic performance--rather than the resources or effort put into the system. Content standards spell out what students should know and be able to do in core subjects. They should be clear, parsimonious, and rigorous. Performance standards indicate the level of performance students should demonstrate. They should include: performance categories, performance descriptors, exemplars of performance in each category, and decision rules that enable educators to determine whether students have reached each category. Assessments Assessments in standards-based systems serve a number of purposes: guiding instruction, monitoring school and district performance, holding schools accountable for meeting performance goals, and more. No single instrument can serve all purposes well. Assessment should involve a range of strategies appropriate for inferences relevant to individual students, classrooms, schools, districts, and states. In order to provide information on the quality of instruction and provide cues to help educators improve teaching and classroom practices, the overwhelming majority of standards-based assessments should be sensitive to effective instruction; that is, they should detect the effects of high-quality teaching. Districts, schools, and teachers should use the results of these assessments to revise their practices to help students improve performance. Assessments are essential to measure the performance of all children. Yet, although 49 percent of children served by Title I are in grades 3 and below, the 1994 statute does not require states to establish assessments before grade 3. Without some form of assessment, schools and districts would have no way of determining the progress of this large group of students to ensure that they do not fall too far behind. To measure the performance of young children, teachers should monitor the progress of individual children in grades K to 3 at multiple points in time by using direct assessments, portfolios, checklists, and other work sampling devices. And schools should be accountable for promoting high levels of reading and mathematics performance for primary grade students. For school accountability in grades 1 and 2, states and districts should gauge school quality through the use of sampling, rather than the assessment of every pupil. Including students with disabilities and English-language learners in assessments also poses significant challenges. Although state policies vary widely, many states exclude large numbers of students with disabilities and English-language learners from assessment mandates. Others include such students but use measures that may not be appropriate. States and districts should develop clear guidelines for accommodations that permit students with disabilities to participate in assessments administered for accountability purposes. Similarly, states and districts should develop clear guidelines for accommodations that permit English-language learners to participate in assessments administered for accountability purposes. Especially important are clear decision rules for determining the level of English language proficiency at which English-language learners should be expected to participate exclusively in English-language assessments. English-language learners should be exempted from assessments only when there is evidence that the assessment, even with accommodations, cannot measure the knowledge or skill of particular students or groups of students. In an education improvement system, data from assessments provide information that teachers and administrators can use to revise their instructional program to enable students to reach challenging standards. For that reason, assessment results should be reported so that they indicate the status of student performance against standards. To ensure accuracy, reports of student performance should include measures of statistical uncertainty, such as a confidence interval or the probability of misclassification. States, districts, and schools should disaggregate data to ensure that schools will be accountable for the progress of all children, especially those with the greatest educational needs. Monitoring the Conditions of Instruction The theory of action of the basic standards-based reform model suggests that, armed with data on how students perform against standards, schools will make the instructional changes needed to improve performance. Research on early implementation of standards-based systems shows, however, that many schools lack an understanding of the changes that are needed and lack the capacity to make them. The link between assessment and instruction needs to be made strong and explicit. One way to forge such a link is by monitoring the conditions of instruction and instructional support. Information about the effects of instructional change--particularly student work that shows the quality of assignments--sends a strong signal about the kinds of changes needed and the impact of new practices. In addition, such information serves as "leading indicators" of performance. Schools and districts should monitor the conditions of instruction--the curriculum and instructional practices of teachers--to determine if students are exposed to teaching that would enable them to achieve the standards they are expected to meet. Schools should use such information to demand support for instructional improvement in every classroom, and districts should use the information to provide such support. Districts should also use data on the conditions of instruction, along with results from student assessments, to design their professional development program. Accountability Accountability is one of the most prominent issues in education policy today. Accountability mechanisms create incentives for educators to focus on important outcomes. They also provide a means for allocating resources, such as instructional assistance, to schools in which performance measures indicate problems. In designing accountability mechanisms, states and districts must first determine an adequate level of progress for schools. Measures of adequate yearly progress should include a range of indicators, including indicators of instructional quality as well as student outcomes. In addition, the criterion for adequate yearly progress should be based on evidence from the highest-performing schools with significant proportions of disadvantaged students. Accountability should follow responsibility: teachers and administrators--individually and collectively--should be held accountable for their part in improving student performance. Teachers and administrators should be held accountable for the progress of their students. Districts and states should be held accountable for the professional development and support they provide teachers and schools to enable students to reach high standards. Accountability provides a way to focus assistance to schools. Assistance should be aimed at strengthening schools' capacity for educating all students to high standards and to building the internal accountability within schools. Without developing school capacity, accountability leads to inappropriate practices, such as efforts to increase test scores without improving student learning. Education improvement systems continually change, based on new knowledge and new circumstances. States and districts should continually monitor and review their systems to determine where improvements are needed and make the changes necessary to improve educational opportunities for all children, and particularly for the disadvantaged children Title I was established to support.