ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to present a design for a monitoring system for assessing elementary and secondary school performance in a school district or education authority (EA). Between 1988 and 1990 I assisted in the design of two monitoring systems, one for the assessment of secondary schools in the Fife Regional Authority in Scotland, the other for the assessment of elementary and secondary schools in a medium-sized school district in Canada. Recently, I have been involved in the analysis of data from the California Assessment Program (see Rumberger and Willms, 1991). The design presented here is largely based on these experiences. There are several important differences between schooling systems in North America and the UK and the purposes of monitoring differ substantially between countries and across districts and EAs (see Chapter 2). However, there were enough similarities in the designs of the monitoring systems that I felt a separate presentation for each type of system would entail too much redundant material. Thus the chapter offers a single design, but includes discussion pertaining to both types of systems.
