While adolescent foundational skills interventions can be critical levers for reading improvement, district leaders, teachers, and researchers must make complex decisions about how to evaluate their effectiveness in context. In this discussion article, we explore three issues and tensions we experienced during a 2-year research-practice…

Throughout the years, career and technical education (CTE) has focused on teaching technical competencies and related academic skills that prepare students to enter and advance in a variety of career fields and postsecondary education. Program and course descriptions are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that the technical and academic skills…

Both within and beyond the OECD region, governments and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in the assessments of the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are for the challenges of the knowledge based society. The current paper provides an overview of the two international assessments of adult…

Professional assessment organizations almost universally endorse the use of multiple measures for making education decisions. In practice, however, the concept of multiple measures is defined and applied in many different ways, depending on how we answer two questions--What counts as a "measure"? and How are the multiple measures…

At a time when governments face the challenges of maintaining competitiveness in a global economy, it is necessary to have high-quality comparative information regarding the fundamental skills of the adult population. Such information can help governments to evaluate policies and design more effective interventions. This article describes a…

This paper presents examples of rubrics that can be used in the assessment of the acquisition of generic skills in accounting education. A rubric is a matrix containing the various factors of an assignment along one dimension (rows) and descriptors of the qualitative levels of accomplishment along the other dimension (columns). A rubric can…

The implications of the lessons learned through an evaluability assessment (EA) of the Title II Basic Skills Improvement Program (BSIP) for State Education Agency (SEA) support of model demonstration programs are discussed. The purposes, methodology and uses of the EA process are presented. Also included is a discussion of the details of the…

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) is a household survey conducted periodically by the Department of Education that evaluates the literacy skills of a sample of adults in the United Stages ages 16 and older. NAAL results are used to characterize adults literacy skills and to inform policy and programmatic decisions. The Committee on…

Describes Florida's Individualized Manpower Training System (IMTS) which combines expanded curriculum (basic education, complementary skills, and work evaluation components), learning resource centers, and management procedures to assist students with basic skill deficiencies. Student motivation, open-entry open-exit study and minimum duplication…

A central concern of Joseph Milner's February 1991 "Kappan" article critiquing the North Carolina Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument is that teacher evaluation will drive teaching. He errs in confusing essential skills with basic skills, ignoring all teacher evaluation's purposes except instructional improvement, and claiming the…

All educators should want to provide students with the best possible education, and this is done through curriculum selection. "Ways of Knowing Through the Realms of Meaning" by Dr. William A. Kritsonis (2007) presents a detailed plan for schools to develop and implement modern curriculum that is perennial. Following Dr. Kritsonis's fundamental…

The Test of Practical Knowledge seeks to measure students' skills to handle everyday life situations by assessing three domains: personal knowledge, social knowledge, and occupational knowledge. This paper describes the administration of the test to students in grades 8 to 12, the summation of data, interpretation of scores, standardization,…

"Proxy" measures have been developed and applied that extend the usefulness of direct assessments of adult basic skills. Three categories of users of data on adult literacy are as follows: (1) government authorities who need objective data to inform the decision-making process; (2) program delivery institutions who require an assessment…

The Comprehensive Basic Skills Program Review (CBSPR) is an essential part of the New Jersey public school evaluation and improvement process. This group of handbooks describes a process for analyzing existing school programs and practices in relation to those factors which have been identified through research to be associated with successful…

Current methods and instruments for assessing college student academic outcomes are identified and described, and possible outcome measures of NCRIPTAL's (National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning) are suggested. Section I defines college outcomes from several perspectives, including pressures for outcome…