Utah's Alternate Assessment (UAA) is one of six components of the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS). UAA is designed to assess the achievement of students in grades 1 through 12 with significant cognitive disabilities. It was developed to fulfill two main purposes: (1) To address federal legislative mandates that all…

This report from the WisKids Count project, instead of being the usual annual data book about an array of issues affecting children, is a collection of essays that take a critical look at the practice of standardized testing and the status of testing in Wisconsin. In the 2002-2001 school year, more than 250,000 Wisconsin children in public schools…

In 1998 the Colorado State General Assembly passed a bill that revised the schedule for implementation of the Colorado Student Assessment Program of state assessments. During the 1998-99 school year, the state assessment was to include third-grade literacy, fourth-grade reading and writing, and seventh-grade reading and writing. The newsletters in…

Several of the major considerations involved in implementing a statewide testing program are discussed. The test results provide information which influences the educational enterprise in matters of curriculum, instruction, guidance, and accountability. Tests to be used in an assessment program must be developed by the administering agency when…

This report is an accounting of a second case study of large-scale assessment practices in a local educational agency where students with disabilities were administered the state's standards-based tests out of level. The first report (Minnema et al., 2004a) provided the results from the first case study conducted in another school district in…

Proponents of out-of-level testing generally contend that there are three benefits for students with disabilities: (1) undue test frustration is avoided; (2) test measurement accuracy is improved; and (3) test items are better matched to students' current educational goals and instructional level (Thurlow, Elliott, & Ysseldyke, 1999). It is…

Political and legislative pressures have posed a number of measurement issues and challenges to the development of sound, valid voluntary national tests (VNTs). This paper focuses on what appear to be the most difficult technical issues related to the VNT proposed by President Clinton in 1997. Technical issues refer to psychometric issues, as…

The current technology of computerized testing is discussed, and a few comments are made on how such technology might be used for assessing school-related skills as part of the National Assessment of Educational progress (NAEP). The critical feature of computerized assessment procedures is that the test items are presented in interactive fashion,…

Stanford Achievement Test scores of 1,434 elementary-level students already placed in either regular or special education programs were arranged according to four cutoff points: 20th, 15th, 10th, and 5th percentiles. This identification method, setting the cutoff at the 5 percent level, is proposed as a preliminary screening device for special…

The Hawai'i State Assessment is an annual testing program that measures student progress on Hawai'i's reading, writing, and mathematics standards. This handbook provides all Department of Education personnel at the school, complex area, and state levels with information about participation in the Hawai'i State Reading and Mathematics Assessment…

The 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) included provisions specifying that states and districts must include students with disabilities in their assessment systems with reasonable accommodations, that states report on the performance of students with disabilities with the same detail and frequency they report on…

The primary purpose of the South Carolina Statewide Testing Program is to assess the achievement of fourth, seventh, and tenth grade public school students. Test results provide educators with information which facilitates the decision-making process. For the second time, Form U of the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills was the instrument used to…

A large urban district [the Houston Independent School District], serving 17,000 handicapped students, initiated a special education achievement testing program to provide measures of student growth and group progress. A standardized test was selected that was both norm- and criterion-referenced and that matched the special education curriculum.…

The effect of testing accommodations, such as extra time, oral reading of the assessment, or small group testing, on the participation and performance levels of limited-English-proficient students (LEP) on the Rhode Island Grade 4 Mathematics Performance Assessment was studied. A pilot study was conducted with 22 classes of students to provide…

Intended for use by school administrators, guidance counselors, teachers and proctors, this manual contains general information on the New York State Regents examinations and competency tests, as well as specific regulations and procedures for ordering, administering, and rating these examinations. The competency testing requirements for a local…