Morgan S. Polikoff

How Well Aligned Are State Assessments of Student Achievement With State Content Standards

Coherence is the core principle underlying standards-based educational reforms. Assessments aligned with content standards are designed to guide instruction and raise achievement. The authors investigate the coherence of standards-based reform’s key instruments using the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum. Analyzing 138 standards-assessment pairs spread across grades and the three No Child Left Behind tested subjects, the authors find that roughly half of standards content is tested on the corresponding test and roughly half of test content corresponds to the standards. A moderate proportion of test content is at the wrong level of cognitive demand as compared to the corresponding standards, and vice versa. Between 17% and 27% of content on a typical test covers topics not mentioned in the corresponding standards. Policy and research implications are discussed.

Instructional Alignment as a Measure of Teaching Quality

Recent years have seen the convergence of two major policy streams in U.S. K–12 education: standards/accountability and teacher quality reforms. Work in these areas has led to the creation of multiple measures of teacher quality, including measures of their instructional alignment to standards/assessments, observational and student survey measures of pedagogical quality, and measures of teachers’ contributions to student test scores. This article is the first to explore the extent to which teachers’ instructional alignment is associated with their contributions to student learning and their effectiveness on new composite evaluation measures using data from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching study. Finding surprisingly weak associations, we discuss potential research and policy implications for both streams of policy.

Formal and Informal Mentoring: Complementary, Compensatory, or Consistent?

Informal mentors likely play a substantial role in novice teacher learning, yet we know little about them, especially in relation to formal mentoring, which is the cornerstone to most induction programs. This study analyzes survey and interview data from 57 first-year mathematics teachers from 11 districts to investigate differences in the characteristics of formal and informal mentoring that can inform improvements in mentoring policy. Our findings suggest that informal and formal mentors sometimes serve similar functions but often provide compensatory and complementary support. Based on these findings, we identify a set of policy recommendations to improve new teacher supports.

Measuring Academic Readiness for College

Recent years have seen increased attention to the high school–college transition. Students are enrolling in college in record numbers, yet they are also taking increasing numbers of remedial courses. How to measure and report on academic readiness for college is an important policy issue receiving attention from the National Assessment Governing Board, Achieve, and several states. The focus of this article is how to create a measure of academic readiness for college, either by building and validating a new assessment or validating and repurposing an existing assessment. After first describing the disjuncture between high school and college and discussing definitions and indicators of academic readiness, the authors identify four strategies that might be used to create a readiness assessment. The pros and cons of each strategy are discussed.

Instructional Alignment under No Child Left Behind.

The alignment of instruction with the content of standards and assessments is the key mediating variable separating the policy of standards-based reform (SBR) from the outcome of improved student achievement. Few studies have investigated SBR’s effects on instructional alignment, and most have serious methodological limitations. This research uses content analyses of state standards and assessments and survey data on more than 27,000 teachers’ instruction in mathematics, science, and English/language arts (ELA) to investigate changes in instructional alignment between 2003 and 2009. Fixed-effects models indicate that alignment in grades K–12 mathematics increased by approximately 0.19–0.65 standard deviations, depending on the grade and target. Alignment also increased to grades K–12 standards in ELA and grades 3–8 standards in science, though the magnitudes were smaller. Multiple alternative specifications support the findings of increased alignment. Implications for research and SBR policy are discussed.

How Well Aligned Are Textbooks to the Common Core Standards in Mathematics

Research has identified a number of problems limiting the implementation of content standards in the classroom. Curriculum materials may be among the most important influences on teachers’ instruction. As new standards roll out, there is skepticism about the alignment of “Common Core–aligned” curriculum materials to the standards. This analysis is the first to investigate claims of alignment in the context of fourth-grade mathematics using the only widely used alignment tool capable of estimating the alignment of curriculum materials with the standards. The results indicate substantial areas of misalignment; in particular, the textbooks studied systematically overemphasize procedures and memorization relative to the standards, among other weaknesses. The findings challenge publishers’ alignment claims and motivate further research on curriculum alignment.

The Waive of the Future? School Accountability in the Waiver Era:

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have recently received waivers to the school accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As the prospects for reauthorizing the Act in the near term are dim, these new accountability systems will be law for at least several years. Drawing on a four-part framework from the measurement literature, we describe and critique the approved waiver accountability plans, comparing them to the NCLB accountability rules. We find a mixed bag—some states have made large improvements and others have not. Overall we conclude that states missed opportunities to design more effective school accountability systems that might minimize negative unintended consequences of these policies. The article concludes with suggestions for state and federal policy in light of the available literature.

The Stability of Observational and Student Survey Measures of Teaching Effectiveness.

Responding to federal policy and recent research, states and districts have developed and begun implementing multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. These systems generally include observational and/or student survey measures of instructional quality alongside measures of teachers’ contributions to student learning (e.g., value-added models [VAMs]). While the research base on VAMs is large and growing, less is known about the measures of instructional quality. This study focuses on the year-to-year stability of observational and student survey measures, drawing on data from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study. Results suggest that the observational and student survey measures used in MET are somewhat more stable than measures of teachers’ contributions to student learning, but the stability is lower than that found in comparable measures in higher education. Nevertheless, reclassification rates based on these measures are high, particularly when based on criterion-referenced cut scores.

Teacher Education, Experience, and the Practice of Aligned Instruction

Research over the past two decades has shown the alignment of teachers’ instruction with state standards is generally weak. Proposing that alignment is a useful measure of teachers’ curricular knowledge (Shulman, 1986), this study uses a large database of teacher reports of their content coverage to understand the relationship of teacher educational and career experience variables with instructional alignment. The results of the fixed effects models indicate significant, positive associations, though they are generally modest in magnitude. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

The Association of State Policy Attributes With Teachers’ Instructional Alignment

States vary greatly in their implementation of standards-based accountability under No Child Left Behind, yet little evidence is available to guide policymakers on what attributes of state policy advance more tightly aligned instruction. This study uses survey data and content analyses from the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum to describe elements of state policy that are associated with tighter alignment between teacher-reported instruction and state standards and assessments. The author reports substantial variation on policy attributes across states, with increasing use of power (rewards and sanctions) and low overall consistency between standards and assessments. Several of the policy attributes are related to instructional alignment, with the strongest fit in mathematics.