The authors studied more than 1 million Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and White seventh graders in a statewide California testing program between 2003 and 2008, examining their reading and math achievement. AAPI student performance is often reported as an aggregate in discussions of the success of schoolchildren and issues of racial…

Growth-based approaches to federal accountability are receiving considerable attention because they have the potential to reward schools and teachers for improving student performance over time by measuring student progress at all levels of the performance spectrum, including progress by students who have not reached proficiency on state…

Argues that state mandated tests should emphasize critical thinking, thus mitigating the concern that such tests encourage instructional focus on rote factual learning. Conceptualizing critical thinking as argumentation provides a way to focus instruction and assessment on types of critical thinking valued in the workplace. Illustrates how this…