When Superintendent Dennis Vespe came to Somerdale Park School District, he was very interested in strengthening teachers' capacity to track student growth and progress. To do this, he knew the district needed to enhance its "ability to accurately assess and accurately drive instruction." But years of experience had taught him that new…

This report discusses frameworks and assessment development approaches to consider fairness, opportunity to learn, and consequences of test use in the design and use of assessments administered to diverse populations. Examples include the integrated design and appraisal framework and the sociocognitively based evidence-centered design approach.…

The 1999 "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" defines validity as the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores entailed by proposed uses of tests. Although quite explicit, there are ways in which this definition lacks precision, consistency, and clarity. The history of validity has taught us…

With the passage of "No Child Left Behind" in 2001, schools are expected to provide a standards-based curriculum for students to attain math and reading proficiency and demonstrate progress each year. "NCLB" requires more frequent student testing with publicly reported results in an effort to close the achievement gap and to inform parents,…

This report describes how one of our nation's largest urban school systems works through the complexities of diverse testing programs, testing schedules, and students to produce timely results that help students, parents, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to produce sound decisions about learning. (Author)

For some districts, the current obsession with data grows out of the need to comply with No Child Left Behind and additional accountability-related mandates. For others, it dates way back before the phrase "data-driven decision making" rolled so frequently off the tongues of educators. In either case, there is no denying that an integral…

The use of achievement tests for high-stakes decision making is discussed, and some comments are made about Ralph Tyler's contributions to educational assessment and what has resulted from them. The assessment war was raging more than 100 years ago, as historical records of testing student achievement demonstrate. Ralph Tyler, in the 1960s, did…

Describes the Praxis III assessment, an observation-based system for assessing the skills of beginning teachers that emphasizes teacher decision-making and the importance of student, school, and curricular context. The principles and processes of the assessment's design and construction are described, and issues in teacher performance-assessment…

This study, reflects the American College Testing Program's (ACT's) interest in analyzing the critical issues affecting the preparation of the postsecondary applicant pool and the high school experience. It offers recommendations that policymakers, educators, and others can use to enhance the transition from high school to postsecondary education.…

High stakes assessment involves testing students for purposes such as grade level retention or advancement, high school graduation, selection for special programs or services, or for other "high stakes" consequences. Issues surrounding the high stakes assessment of English language learners (ELLs) were the focus of an August 1997 invitational…

To provide information for decision making related to competency testing in reading, the Cleveland School District developed a working paper for staff discussion. This paper presents information about the varied aspects of a competency testing program which will use locally developed test questions and be implemented in response to a Board of…

The role that achievement testing plays in the educational system of Trinidad and Tobago and results from the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) tests administered in 1989 are discussed (for these tests, students generally sit for five to eight examinations on subjects they have taken throughout their secondary schooling). The educational system…

The Oregon State System of Higher Education is developing a new approach to admission to any of the state's seven public baccalaureate granting institutions. This approach replaces the grade point average with proficiencies, clearly specified statements of the knowledge and skills students must master. The new system is known as the…

Papers on second language testing in Japan include: "Differences Between Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests" (James Dean Brown); "Criterion-Referenced Test Construction and Evaluation" (Dale T. Griffe); "Behavioral Learning Objectives as an Evaluation Tool" (Judith A. Johnson); "Developing Norm-…