Data collected during the first year of a 3-year study are reported. The study evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of special services provided to approximately 10,000 language-minority limited-English-proficient first- and third-grade students in English-medium classrooms in a national sample of 18 school districts. Services studied are not…

Designed to be integrated into a regular language arts curriculum in grades 1-3, the program begins with a review of the recent history of elementary second language programs in the United States and a discussion of the direction the movement might take in the 1980s. Research done on nonintensive, nonbilingual second language programs in the past…

The program design and psychometric characteristics of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) are described, focusing on scaling, equating, standard setting, score accuracy, and validity. The MSPAP is an innovative performance-based testing program administered annually to students in grades three, five, and eight. (SLD)