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These are the appendixes for the report, "Stabilizing School Performance Indicators in New Jersey to Reduce the Effect of Random Error." This study applied a stabilization model called Bayesian hierarchical modeling to group-­level data (with groups assigned according to demographic designations) within schools in New Jersey with the aim of improving reliability, particularly for small groups of students. The four appendixes in the document include: (1) Theoretical review; (2) Methods; (3) Supporting analysis; and (4) Other analyses: Implications of the use of group-level data arising from relationships among demographic composition, subgroup size, and scores.

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires states to use a variety of indicators, including standardized tests and attendance records, to designate schools for support and improvement based on schoolwide performance and the performance of groups of students within schools. Schoolwide and group-level performance indicators are also diagnostically relevant for district-level and school-level decisionmaking outside the formal accountability context. Like all measurements, performance indicators are subject to measurement error, with some having more random error than others. Measurement error can have an outsized effect for smaller groups of students, rendering their measured performance unreliable, which can lead to misidentification of groups with the greatest needs. Many states address the reliability problem by excluding from accountability student groups smaller than an established threshold, but this approach sacrifices equity, which requires counting students in all relevant groups. With the aim of improving reliability, particularly for small groups of students, this study applied a stabilization model called Bayesian hierarchical modeling to group-level data (with groups assigned according to demographic designations) within schools in New Jersey. Stabilization substantially improved the reliability of test -based indicators, including proficiency rates and median student growth percentiles. The stabilization model used in this study was less effective for non test based indictors, such as chronic absenteeism and graduation rate, for several reasons related to their statistical properties. When stabilization is applied to the indicators best suited for it (such as proficiency and growth), it leads to substantial changes in the lists of schools designated for support and improvement. These results indicate that, applied correctly, stabilization can increase the reliability of performance indicators for processes using these indicators, simultaneously improving accuracy and equity.

The focus of this report is on mental health interventions delivered in K-12 neighborhood public schools. A vast array of commercially available programs, conceptual frameworks, and approaches to school-based mental health are not unanimously recommended, applied, or agreed upon. This poses a challenge to any comprehensive description or evaluation of school-based mental health. Key findings include: (1) There is a lack of high-quality evidence to support school-based mental health initiatives. Rigorous evaluations of universal programs on mental health literacy, awareness, prevention, and screening--and of many social-emotional learning programs--find neither reduced rates of mental health conditions nor improved academic outcomes; (2) The concept of school-based mental health, as currently delivered in typical neighborhood public schools, is incoherent because it primarily serves youth who are not specifically in need of mental health treatment, while insufficiently serving those with mental disorders; (3) While some youth can benefit from high-quality mental health services, universal mental health programs carry underestimated potential harms: directly, through poor-quality care, overdiagnosis, and misallocated spending; and indirectly, through wasted class time and reduced accountability in the mental health and education systems; and (4) Federal agencies responsible for school-based mental health programs provide no meaningful or coordinated guidance on essential questions such as what it means for a program to be effective, what expectations exist in "mental health deserts," and how schools should sort through numerous overlapping initiatives.

This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against students in other countries can not only confirm the rigor of the MCAS, but the comparison can also provide meaning to MCAS scores and ensure that they accurately measure student performance. There are two primary international exams given at regular intervals: (1) the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS); and (2) the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The strong performance on the international exams across several years and subjects, especially on TIMSS, confirmed the quality of Massachusetts K-12 schools.

The Career and Occupational Development (COD) assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was made up of about 70 percent free response exercises requiring hand scoring. This paper describes the techniques used in developing the "scoring guides" for these exercises and summarizes the results of two empirical studies of the application of these scoring guides. The guides used in the hand scoring were sets of nominal (descriptive) category systems. No attempt was made to arrange the categories along any ordinal continuum according to either quality or content. However, categories were considered to be either acceptable or unacceptable. The readers were given a scoring guide in which each category is given a descriptive title and illustrated by a number of sample responses. (RC) Primary type of information provided by report: Procedures (Scoring).

Structural integrity of a measure is defined in terms of its replicability, constancy, invariance, and stability. Work completed in the development and validation of the Self Observation Scales (SOS) Primary Level (Stenner and Katzenmeyer, 1973) serves to illustrate one method of establishing structural integrity. The name of each scale of the SOS is a construct: an abbreviated thesis about the nature of the underlying variable which determines the configuration of indicants (questions) comprising the scale. SOS constructs (self acceptance, social maturity, school affiliation, and self security) are analyzed for different student groups. Traditional psychometrics assumes that the same questions measure the same underlying variables in all respondents; the validity of interperson and intergroup comparisons rests on this assumption. However, ample evidence suggests that this assumption is frequently in error. Procedures outlined in this paper provide a method for assessing the validity of this assumption, and a basis for developing reliable and valid instruments. (Author/MV)

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

Use of the term Background knowledge, in conjunction with Reading Comprehension, has become convoluted and vague over the past several decades of research. Showing the abundance of uses of the term in multiple domains and disciplines has relegated it to being an automatic inclusion in key notes and conclusions of research on the topic of improving reading skills. This study aims to redefine Background Knowledge for clarity of thought in future investigations. Also, with data revealing national standard reading scores at an impasse for over forty years now, the redefined concept of Background Knowledge is offered as a starting point for use with new technologies that show great promise in the search for methods to improve reading for all students.

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Houston area, causing the homelessness of nearly 24,000 students in the Houston Independent School District (Houston ISD) alone. Additionally, nearly all Houston ISD schools sustained damage of some kind, resulting in school closures, campus relocations, and even the delaying of the start of classes for some students. In the first brief of this two-part series, the authors examine the characteristics of students who became homeless due to Harvey. They found that students who became temporarily homeless for a year or less due to Harvey tended to fare as well as or better on educational outcomes than even their never-homeless peers.

This is the 12th edition of EdChoice's Schooling in America survey. The purpose of this annual survey is to gauge public opinion on a range of issues in K-12 education, including school choice policies and parents' schooling experiences. From April 9 to April 30, 2024, we surveyed 2,319 current school parents and 1,502 members of the general population. We report polling results based on a nationally representative sample of both groups. Nearly 4,000 interviews were conducted online and over the phone. In this year's survey, we also asked new questions related to recent issues in education pertaining to transparency, accountability, technology, and artificial intelligence. The survey yielded many findings including: (1) School safety is now the top reason to choose a school for charter (37%), private (36%) and homeschool (53%) parents; (2) Most Americans (70%) and nearly two-thirds of parents (64%) say K-12 education is on the wrong track; (3) The majority of school parents think standardized tests are an important accountability measure, especially for teachers (67%), schools (65%), and school districts (65%); and (4) Two-thirds of parents (66%) say that schools should teach students how to use artificial intelligence responsibly.

School improvement is an iterative process through which districts and schools develop their capacity, implement and refine new policies and practices, and respond to new developments and needs over time. School improvement policy can also be considered an iterative process, with policy implementors learning from previous rounds of a policy. Michigan developed the Partnership Model for School and District Turnaround to provide support and accountability for its lowest-performing schools (i.e., Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools, or CSI schools). In November 2022, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) identified the current round (Round 4) of Partnership schools and districts. By the spring of 2023, Partnership districts outlined new improvement goals and accountability measures, and by fall of 2023 they developed improvement plans to meet those goals. Throughout the 2023-2024 school year, they began to implement those improvement plans. This report describes the goals and planning activities for Round 4 of Partnership schools and districts and analyzes the targets that they set, the accountability measures they selected, and the specific activities they planned to implement as part of their improvement efforts.

This study analyzed Pennsylvania School Climate Survey data from students and staff in the 2021/22 school year to assess the validity and reliability of the elementary school student version of the survey; approaches to scoring the survey in individual schools at all grade levels; and perceptions of school climate across student, staff, and school groups. The survey encourages data-informed efforts in participating Pennsylvania schools to foster supportive learning environments that promote social and emotional wellness for students and staff. The study validated the elementary school student survey but found that one domain--safe and respectful school climate--did not meet the reliability threshold and thus suggests that revisions are needed. At all grade levels noninstructional staff had the most positive perceptions of school climate, followed by classroom teachers then students. The study found that different approaches to combining the school climate scores of students, teachers, and noninstructional staff within schools yielded slightly different distributions of school climate summary index scores. It also found that different performance category thresholds resulted in similar distributions of schools across categories. Scores calculated using simple averages were strongly and positively correlated with scores calculated using a more complex approach (Rasch models), suggesting that both approaches deliver similar information. School climate scores varied across student groups (defined by race/ethnicity, gender, and grade level) within schools and across school groups. Larger schools and schools with higher percentages of Black students tended to have lower school climate scores than other schools. The findings can inform the Pennsylvania Department of Education's decisionmaking on revisions to the elementary school student survey, approaches to scoring and reporting survey results, and efforts to increase participation in future survey administrations.

These are the appendixes for the report, "Strengthening the Pennsylvania School Climate Survey to Inform School Decisionmaking." This study analyzed Pennsylvania School Climate Survey data from students and staff in the 2021/22 school year to assess the validity and reliability of the elementary school student version of the survey; approaches to scoring the survey in individual schools at all grade levels; and perceptions of school climate across student, staff, and school groups. The three appendixes in the document include: (1) Data and methods; (2) Supplemental findings; and (3) Additional findings.

Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project was undertaken by Alaska Native expert educators and linguists (aka the Yup'ik Expert Group) from the Yup'ik community in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, Central Alaska. The native experts developed their own culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten through Grade 6 Alaska Native language (Yugtun) assessment. Yup'ik experts named their assessment the Yugtun Piciryaranek Qaneryaranek-llu Cuqyun (aka Yup'ik Culture and Language Measurement). This paper focuses on a foundational component of the assessment, the Yup'ik Cultural Awareness subtest, which has two components, Nonverbal Communication and Yup'ik Worldview.

The Partnership for College Completion (PCC) was founded to "advance equity in higher education" by supporting colleges and universities to improve college completion for Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students--those groups that experience persistent disparities in completion. Simultaneously, PCC engages in state policy reform to bring about systems-wide change. Begun in 2018, the Illinois Equity in Attainment Initiative (ILEA) is its flagship initiative, designed to partner with Illinois colleges and universities to assist them in narrowing their college completion gaps. Promising new research suggests improving equity in college completion requires an explicit focus on race, attention to organizational change, commitment to equity-focused policies and plans, and cross-institutional partnerships to help manifest change. Drawing from this research, ILEA and its partner institutions developed and implemented public-facing equity plans to improve graduation rates for their Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students. This study examines how the ILEA collaborative institutions confronted and negotiated structural barriers inhibiting graduation for these historically marginalized groups. The report aims to: (1) Provide study partners, including the Partnership for College Completion, with program feedback; (2) Inform readers about equity plan development and implementation, policy, and practice collaboratives; (3) Identify strengths and growth opportunities about PCC's efforts to bring colleges and universities together to jointly improve college completion for Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students; and (4) Reflect on implementation successes and challenges.

We survey undergraduate students at a large public university to understand the pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors driving their college major and career decisions with a focus on K-12 teaching. While the average student reports there is a 6% chance they will pursue teaching, almost 27% report a nonzero chance of working as a teacher in the future. Students, relative to existing statistics, generally believe they would earn substantially more in a non-teaching job (relative to a teaching job). We run a randomized information experiment where we provide students with information on the pecuniary and non-pecuniary job characteristics of teachers and non-teachers. This low-cost informational intervention impacts students' beliefs about their job characteristics if they were to work as a teacher or non-teacher, and increases the reported likelihood they will major or minor in education by 35% and pursue a job as a teacher or in education by 14%. Linking the survey data with administrative transcript records, we find that the intervention had small (and weak) impacts on the decision to minor in education in the subsequent year. Overall, our results indicate that students hold biased beliefs about their career prospects, they update these beliefs when provided with information, and that this information has limited impacts on their choices regarding studying and having a career in teaching.

Utilizing course grade data from 22 four-year higher education institutions, this study highlights the trends in first-year grade point average (FYGPA) between the 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 academic years, the period immediately before and after the pandemic disrupted both K12 and higher education. Results showed that while FYGPAs generally increased at institutions with more selective admission standards, especially private, more selective institutions, FYGPAs remained relatively unchanged at the less selective institutions. Over these five years, high school grade point average (HSGPA) generally increased among incoming students at nearly every institution while SAT® scores generally decreased. The results of institution-level logistic regression analyses indicated that students with the same pre-college academic achievement levels as measured by SAT scores and HSGPA were more likely to earn a FYGPA of 3.0 or higher in later cohort years than were students in the 2017 cohort. Faculty survey results, based on more than 3,000 respondents from over 1,200 higher education institutions, complement the administrative data analyses in this study. The survey findings suggest college faculty believe that the characteristics of incoming students as well as their academic performance in college are weaker now than in the past. Implications for future higher education research and facilitating nuanced K12 and higher education conversations on more effectively preparing students for college are discussed.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Preeminent Research University Funding Metrics; (5) Key Performance Indicators; (6) Enrollment Planning; and (7) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Preeminent Research University Funding Metrics; (5) Key Performance Indicators; (6) Enrollment Planning; and (7) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Preeminent Research University Funding Metrics; (5) Key Performance Indicators; (6) Enrollment Planning; and (7) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Preeminent Research University Funding Metrics; (5) Key Performance Indicators; (6) Enrollment Planning; and (7) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Key Performance Indicators; (5) Enrollment Planning; and (6) Definitions.

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution's direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Contents include: (1) Introduction; (2) Strategy; (3) Performance-Based Funding Metrics; (4) Preeminent Research University Funding Metrics; (5) Key Performance Indicators; (6) Enrollment Planning; and (7) Definitions.