The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) establishes ambitious goals for increasing student learning and attaining equity in the distribution of student performance. Schools must assure that all students, including all significant subgroups, show adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward the goal of 100% proficiency by the year 2014. In this paper,…

One of the primary themes of the National Research Council's 2001 book "Knowing What Students Know" was the importance of cognition as a component of assessment design and measurement theory (NRC, 2001). One reaction to the book has been an increased use of sophisticated statistical methods to model cognitive information available in test data.…

The articles in this issue, written from the perspectives of academics, practitioners, and publishers, show that examining the consequences of assessment is an important, large, and difficult task. Collaborative action by assessment developers, users, and the educational measurement community is needed if progress is to be made. (SLD)

Each potential user must take the final responsibility for deciding whether a test can deliver what it promises in the situation in which it is to be used. A review procedure involves reading and evaluating research, studying technical manuals, taking the test, and communicating with others involved with the test. (Author/CM)

Test developers have an obligation to create the most appropriate assessment instruments possible as L. J. Kilian argues, but whether they do or not, educators still are responsible for providing test preparation that is professionally ethical and educationally defensible. (SLD)