School reform efforts across the US have focused on creating systems in which all students are expected to achieve to high standards. To ensure that students reach those standards and to document what students know and can do, schools collect assessment information on students' academic achievement. More information is needed, however, to find out…

Austin's results on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) for grades 1-6 for 1980-81 are presented for each campus as well as for the district. These results are accompanied by school and district characteristics, so as to describe the general context in which the achievement scores were collected. Grades 3-6 were tested on four sections of the…

Austin's results are presented for the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) for grades 7-8 and the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP) for grades 9-12 for 1980-81. Results are presented for each campus as well as for the district. School and district characteristics accompany these results to describe the general context in which these…

Officials of the United States Department of Education conclude that the pervasive "above average" achievement reported by J. J. Cannell (1988) results from a combination of testing practices and procedures among school testing programs. Causative factors of this paradox, dubbed the "Lake Wobegon Phenomenon," are discussed.…

Representatives of the Riverside Publishing Company discuss the "Lake Wobegon Phenomenon," the reported "above average" achievement of most elementary schools nationwide that was discussed by J. J. Cannell (1988) of the Friends for Education. More appropriate use of normative comparisons and more complete reporting of test…

Recognizing the concerns raised by J. J. Cannell (1988), Science Research Associates (SRA) defends its norms. Trends in curriculum need to be monitored in addition to students' achievement levels. New norms are needed only when there is a significant shift in curriculum or student performance. (SLD)

Despite the skepticism of J. J. Cannell (1988) that commercial test scores reveal much about the real achievement level of students, there is ample evidence that at least some of the gains observed on standardized tests are legitimate. Standardized scores should be greeted with healthy skepticism when high, but taken very seriously when low. (SLD)

The California Achievement Test was administered to the students of the Mesa Public Schools in April, 1981, and again in April, 1982. This state-mandated test is administered to all students in grades 1 through 12. Although this report is directed toward the performance of Mesa students at the elementary level, a general overview of the…

The Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), Form U were administered to all students in Grades 5, 7, and 9 in the San Diego City Schools during the last two weeks of April, 1983. This report is intended to respond to two primary questions: (1) how are San Diego elementary and junior high students doing relative to the national norm group, and…

In response to J. J. Cannell's (1988) discussion of the reported "above average" achievement of the vast majority of public school systems nationwide, the nature of national norms is discussed. The public must be better informed about the interpretation of test results. (SLD)

Four publishers responding to the previous discussion agreed that American elementary achievement has improved, but evidence presented by the Secretary of Education confirms that few real improvements have occurred since "Nation at Risk." Commercial achievement tests provide falsely high scores (the Lake Wobegon Effect). (SLD)

The purposes of this study were to compare student, school, and group average distributions of two standardized tests, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and Stanford 7 Plus Achievement Test, and examine the American College Testing Programs college entrance examinations (Grades 11-12). In addition to the student-school norm comparisons, ratios…

This report provides Albuquerque Public School Administrative personnel with 1982-83 test result summaries for gifted students in grades 1 through 12 on the Scott Foresman Achievement Series tests and the Developing Cognitive Abilities (D-CAT) test. These results are the first complete set of pre- and posttest data obtained on gifted students over…

Each spring the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) are administered to grades 5, 8, and 11 throughout New Mexico as part of the State Department of Education mandated assessment program. This report contains information regarding Albuquerque Public Schools' results on the 1982 CTBS. A new form of the CTBS was selected for testing fifth and…

Information on the achievement of students in Southern States is presented, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). State profiles are presented for 12 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, plus Maryland and Texas. A 1984-1985 SREB pilot project with the National Assessment of Educational Progress is also…