As states, districts, and schools plan to return for the 2021-22 school year, questions are raised about whether and how to test children with disabilities, including children with the most significant cognitive disabilities and English learners with disabilities. This FAQ addresses some common questions and provides links to useful resources.

Three examples of extant testing practices (i.e., a classroom instructor's use of a simple pre-post design, the practice of teaching to the test, and the think aloud verbal protocol) are discussed to illustrate the contention that assessment in the service of testing and learning does not necessarily involve radically different assessment…

The GED® test was built from the ground up to give students a test that measures the skills they need to succeed. The test focuses on the foundational knowledge and skills needed for career- and college-readiness, so colleges and employers know that students who pass the GED® test have the skills to excel on the job or in the classroom. This…

This data byte explores students' open-ended responses about how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted them academically. Students commented on the impact to their opportunities for taking the ACT® test; issues of time related to taking the test, preparing for the test, and college admissions deadlines; and the greater demands being placed on them…

Postsecondary education has undergone dramatic changes in the past 30 years or so. When I began teaching at the college level in the mid-1980s I went to class clutching my scribbled notes and a piece of chalk. If I scheduled it well in advance, a few times each semester I could have someone wheel in an overhead or film projector. Students typed…

Testing and data integrity on statewide assessments is defined as the establishment of a comprehensive set of policies and procedures for: (1) the proper preparation of students; (2) the management and administration of the test(s) that will lead to accurate and appropriate reporting of assessment results; and (3) maintaining the security of…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; P.L. 114-95), specifies the requirements for the state assessments that states must incorporate into their state accountability systems to receive funding under Title I-A. Title IA of the ESEA authorizes aid to local educational agencies (LEAs)…

ACT reporting categories and ACT Readiness Ranges are new features added to the ACT score reports starting in fall 2016. For each reporting category, the number correct score, the maximum points possible, the percent correct, and the ACT Readiness Range, along with an indicator of whether the reporting category score falls within the Readiness…

In online educational systems we can easily collect and analyze extensive data about student learning. Current practice, however, focuses only on some aspects of these data, particularly on correctness of students answers. When a student answers incorrectly, the submitted wrong answer can give us valuable information. We provide an overview of…

Preparing at-risk youth and students with mild disabilities for state and district tests is important for improving their test performance, and basic instruction in test preparation can significantly improve student test performance. The article defines noncognitive variables that adversely affect test-taker performance. The article also describes…

Students with learning or learning-related disabilities frequently struggle with multiple choice assessments due to difficulty discriminating between items, filtering out distracters, and framing a mental best answer. This Practice Brief suggests accommodations and strategies that disability service providers can utilize in conjunction with…

The inevitable responses to high stakes testing, wherein students' test scores are highly consequential for teachers and administrators, include cheating, excessive test preparation, changes in test scoring and other forms of gaming to ensure that test scores appear high. Over the last decade this has been demonstrated convincingly in the USA, but…

Preparation for high-stakes testing, while unavoidable, may become meaningful, these authors argue. The article illustrates the case of a third-grade classroom in a metropolitan public school, where test preparation was approached as genre study. In addition to examining the specific unit of study, the authors describe the efforts of the classroom…

Even though it often feels like standardized testing is a relatively recent phenomena, it has been around at least since the 1800s, when in China, those that wanted a government job were required to take a test on their expertise of Confucian philosophy and poetry. During the Industrial Revolution, standardized tests were a quick way to test large…

Research evidence indicates that formative assessment is one of the most effective ways of enhancing student learning. It is, however, difficult to implement successfully, principally because what is tested through summative assessment has such a powerful influence on teacher and student actions. This book scrutinizes the relationship between…