Developments in the Preparation and Licensing of School Leaders: The Work of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium

Volume 13, Number 3, of the Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education is a special issue developed under the leadership of Joseph F. Murphy of Vanderbilt University. The articles discuss some of the recent and important work of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC), which operates under the auspices of the Council of Chief State School Officers and in cooperation with the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. In carrying out its work, the ISLCC has brought together some 30 states, a variety of professional associations, and a number of universities to reexamine, conceptualize, and redefine the meaning of school leadership as we approach the next century. Core principles grounded in a broad view of education and society and accompanying content standards have been developed by the ISLCC as a basis for several decision-making and education-improvement contexts, including licensure, certification, program improvement, and candidate assessment.     

From the Editor

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Elementary Teachers' Knowledge and Self-Efficacy for Measurement Concepts

Educational standardized testing impacts millions of children and educational professionals each year. In the current accountability climate, an effective educational system depends on professionals who are literate in assessment and can take the appropriate actions in response to test results. Measurement researchers should begin to focus more attention on how teachers use assessment results, what skills teachers possess, and what teachers believe they can do in working with test results. This study examined elementary teacher knowledge and self-efficacy in measurement concepts through a random sample of teachers in the state of Washington. Teachers had greater success with skills related to basic measurement concepts compared to using test scores for informed decisions. No relationship was found between years of teaching and measurement knowledge or self-efficacy. However, teachers showing interest in resources for communicating test results to parents had lower self-efficacy compared to teachers not interested in resources.     

A Proposed Framework for Evaluating Alignment Studies

Evaluating the multiple characteristics of alignment has taken a prominent role in educational assessment and accountability systems given its attention in the No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB). Leading to this rise in popularity, alignment methodologies that examined relationships among curriculum, academic content standards, instruction, and assessments were proposed as strategies to evaluate evidence of the intended uses and interpretations of test scores. In this article, we propose a framework for evaluating alignment studies based on similar concepts that have been recommended for standard setting (Kane). This framework provides guidance to practitioners about how to identify sources of validity evidence for an alignment study and make judgments about the strength of the evidence that may impact the interpretation of the results.     

Counselor Educators' Gatekeeping Responsibilities and Students' First Amendment Rights

In 2 recent legal cases, graduate counselor education students challenged the imposition of remediation plans as violating their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and religion. With special emphasis on this recent litigation, the article examines the legal standards governing the authority of counselor educators at public colleges and universities, including professionalism and ethical rules as a part of curricular requirements to prohibit client discrimination based on sexual orientation.     

District Accountability Without a State Assessment: A Proposed Model

Most states have adopted assessment and accountability systems that involve common measures of student performance. A state assessment system that allows school districts to choose the specific strategies they use to measure student performance on state-adopted content standards presents a unique state accountability challenge. The authors propose an accountability model that addresses this challenge using a combination of student performance, technical quality, and noncognitive indicators of performance. They also describe a study that evaluated the proposed model using data from all school districts in a southern state.