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Volume 6, Issue 2, March 22, 2010

NCEO Conference on AA-MAS
National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) is hosting part 3 of a teleconference series on a white paper commissioned by the New York Comprehensive Center in Collaboration with the New York State Education Department, Considerations for the Alternate Assessment based on Modified Achievement Standards (AA-MAS): Understanding the Eligible Population and Applying that Knowledge to their Instruction and Assessment on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 1:30pm-3:00pm CST. David Pugalee and Robert Rickelman (University of North Carolina-Charlotte), Catherine Welch and Stephen Dunbar (University of Iowa), and Marianne Perie (Center for Assessment) will present Section II: Test Design: Understanding Content and Achievement Standards and Incorporating Appropriate Item Modifications (Chapters 5-7 of the white paper). For more information about the presenters and the topics, see the executive summary. By Friday, March 26, 2010, a single representative from each state should e-mail Jason Altman at altma014@umn.edu to register and to receive additional information on the call.

Recent Information Requests Submitted to the NCRRC
Information Services provided reports in response to 2 Information Requests in February. The following list describes the requests, using the descriptor terms from the Matrix thesaurus as an organizing device. Attached is a list of the actual questions as well. Please contact Rebekah Rieke, Program Coordinator, at rieke033@umn.edu if you would like further information about any of these searches.

1. Appropriate Instruction & RTI
2. Monitoring, Fiscal Management, Reporting Requirements

Federal Funding and Building Integrated Early Childhood Programs
The BUILD Initiative recently published a paper, entitled Federal Funding and Young Children: Directions, Opportunities, and Challenges to States in Building Early Childhood Programs, by Charles Bruner. The document highlights current and new federal sources of funding for early learning programs and discusses the challenges states are facing in trying to effectively coordinate and use federal funding to build integrated early childhood systems.

NCES Report on Dropout and Completion Rates
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently published a report, entitled High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007, by Emily Forrest Cataldi, Jennifer Laird, and Angelina KewalRamani. This document reports on high school dropout and completion rates from 1972 through 2007, and discusses the characteristics of high school dropouts and high school completers in 2007.