Carole Gallagher

Bio: Carole Gallagher is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Formative assessment & Policy analysis. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 8 publications receiving 58 citations.

Guidelines for Ensuring the Technical Quality of Assessments Affecting

Abstract: These guidelines, prepared by the Special Populations Strand of the Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (AACC), focus on the technical quality of assessments for English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). This document is an evolving document that will periodically be updated to incorporate new information. This document is intended to provide information to Regional Comprehensive Centers (RCCs) and states as they work to comply with the regulations of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) affecting their special student populations (i.e., SWDs, ELLs). These guidelines also are intended to help RCCs and states: gauge where a state is with regard to meeting federal requirements relevant to the assessment and accountability of special student populations; •

National board for professional teaching standardsの設立と現状に関する考察

Abstract: Social studies/history teachers deal with big issues: Who are we, and where do we come from? Why do people believe the things they do, and how do they find meaning in their lives? Why have people organized their societies, economies, and environments in so many different ways, and why do they still? What causes conflict, and how can it be prevented—or should it be? What accounts for poverty and inequality, prejudice and discrimination, or the success and failure of nations? What influences the choices people make? How can we treat each other more humanely, and how can we communicate across our differences? And how do we come to know the answers to any of these questions? In exploring such issues, social studies/history teachers engage students in the most fascinating, exhilarating, maddening, and even confusing topics known to humanity: The origin and spread of scientific ideas, religions, and ideologies; the nature of people, places, and environments; the meeting of cultures and the exchange of ideas; changes in love, marriage, and the family; the rise of democracies and dictatorships. Students learn about the Holocaust, civil rights, women’s suffrage, slavery, torture, natural disasters, immigration, Confucius, international trade, the Enlightenment, human rights, Hiroshima, gender roles, Crazy Horse, the end of apartheid, Normandy, the printing press, Thomas Jefferson, revolutions, disease, and even rock and roll.

Distorting value added: The use of longitudinal, vertically scaled student achievement data for growth-based, value-added accountability

Abstract: Longitudinal, student performance-based, value-added accountability models have become popular of late and continue to enjoy increasing popularity. Such models require student data to be vertically...

Putting growth and value-added models on the map: A national overview

Abstract: BackgroundWithin the last few years, the focus on educational accountability has shifted from holding students responsible for their own performance to holding those shown to impact student perform...

“I never thought of it as freezing”: How students answer questions on large‐scale science tests and what they know about science

Abstract: Education policy in the U.S. in the last two decades has emphasized large-scale assessment of students, with growing consequences for schools, teachers, and students. Given the high stakes of such tests, it is important to understand the relationships between students' answers to test items and their knowledge and skills in the tested content area. Due to persistent test score gaps, students from historically non-dominant communities, and their teachers and schools, are differentially affected by the consequences of large-scale testing. As a result, it is particularly important to understand how students from historically non-dominant communities interact with test items on large-scale tests. We report on a study in which we interviewed 36 students about their responses to six multiple-choice science test items from the Massachusetts state science assessment for fifth grade. The 36 students included 12 students from low-income households, 12 English Language Learners, and 12 middle-class native English speakers. We found that for five of the six selected test items, students' descriptions of the science content knowledge they used to answer the test items frequently did not match the content knowledge targeted by the items. In addition, students from low-income households and English Language Learners were more likely than middle-class native English speakers to answer incorrectly despite demonstrating knowledge of the targeted science content for the items. We argue that such evidence challenges the expectation that students' answers to individual test items reflect their knowledge of the targeted science content, and that evidence of this kind should be included in investigations of the validity of large-scale tests. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 778–803, 2012