Asked to review the four articles that appear in this special issue of "Educational Psychologist," these authors discuss the articles in alphabetical order, describe their major arguments, analyze strengths and weaknesses from their perspective, and provide some considerations. The analysis section about each article brings their…

The myth equating high-stakes testing with rigor and difficulty is one that can be debunked given the empirical work that has been conducted in this area. To completely debunk this myth in gifted education, the field must centralize efforts. Educators need to consider alternatives to the current system of assessment and the delivery of…

This article presents an interview with Reggie Felton, director of federal relations of the Nation School Board Association (NSBA). Felton talks about the No Child Left Behind Act and the proposed changes of the NSBA. The coalition's major concern is the current accountability framework of NCLB that does not accurately or fairly assess student or…

In September 2006, the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education issued an indictment of American higher education. Costs are too high, said the panel formed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, graduates rates too low, and learning outcomes a mystery. Moreover, "compounding all of these difficulties is a lack of clear,…

Direct observation is the hallmark example of broader behavior assessment. As such, it involves a systematic process in which behaviors, settings, and their reciprocal relationship are studied. As a process, behavior assessment relies on multiple methods and repeated measurement. Each component in the behavior assessment battery makes a unique…

Following months of pressure from states and education groups, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has announced a pilot program that will let some states use what are known as growth models to evaluate the success of schools and districts under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Growth models track the progress of youngsters over…

This brief report summarizes how American education has drifted into the accountability systems now in use, either under individual state laws or as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The report describes how slip-sliding into the current accountability requirements has resulted in a system so flawed that it fails in its…

Whatever has happened to using teacher observation as an approach to assess student achievement? Presently, the emphasis is upon state mandated testing to ascertain student progress. Much is written in educational journals about having students achieve No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal and state standards, signed into law in 2002. Much drill is…

This essay distinguishes between the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act's narrow definition of highly qualified teachers and the full range of skills and knowledge teachers must have to teach all children effectively. It asserts that the NCLB's lack of distinction between minimally and highly qualified teachers, along with rapid implementation…

Of the many arguments for charter schools, one is crucial: that charters should be deliberately, thoughtfully, boldly different from existing mainline public middle and high schools. The evidence of the ineffectiveness of the traditional design of K-12 education, especially that of middle and high schools, serving both rich and poor, is…

In regards to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the emperor is not wearing any clothes. The author contends that this bill uses impressive sounding buzz words and phraseology with which one can hardly disagree, but in essence it offers no new innovations or does nothing to improve the fundamental quality of education. This bill is not based on…

50 years after the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, a high-stakes testing movement, significantly boosted by provisions contained in No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has emerged with the potential of both positive and negative implications. This paper argues that assessment generally is not tied to the 3 positive outcomes of…

In this article, the author draws attention to the fact that in school evaluations, students will improve on state-mandated tests, but the improved scores will not influence a school's adequate yearly progress (AYP) status because those students' scores do not cross the proficiency point. A state's proficiency point on each of its standardized…

At a time when the ongoing effort to reform public education in the United States is strongly influenced by requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), policymakers and education leaders at all levels are focused on improving student achievement in math and reading. Emphasis on these two areas, however, is generating concern among…

The author of this article challenges a common assumption made by both critics and defenders of standardized-testing technology (or psychometry), namely that standardized tests "measure" something (culture, ability, etc.). It argues that psychometric practice cannot be classified as a form of measurement and instead is best understood as…