Timely and credible data on student learning has become a global issue in the ongoing effort to improve educational outcomes. With the potential to serve as a powerful diagnostic tool to gauge the overall health and well-being of an educational system, educational assessments have received increasing attention among specialists and the media.…

This paper shares the author's thoughts on the required New York State Regents examinations: namely, that the exams, now an integral part of social studies courses, are in some ways a real deterrent to relevant learning. Recommendations were made by the House of Delegates of the New York State Council for the Social Studies (the state-wide…

This procedures manual for the North Carolina Test Development Program details the tasks involved in test development. The basic steps are described in an introductory section; they are (1) to specify the institutional objectives of the curriculum and ensure their instructional validity; and (2) to specify the characteristics, such as the purpose…

How much do 17-year olds know about U.S. history and literature? The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been gathering information about the educational attainment of American students in a variety of subject areas, but no study had focused solely on students' basic knowledge of American history and their familiarity with major…

Curriculum reform in Scotland in the 1970s is described. The implications for testing and teaching are discussed. (GDC)

Matches between questions in the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System for 1995-96 (KIRIS96), the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Fourth Edition (CTBS4), and the California Achievement Tests, Fifth Edition (CAT5) and the Kentucky Academic Expectations as they are defined in the Kentucky curriculum framework were studied. Each…

Some uses of achievement tests to provide information for school administrators are described. Three systematic programs are described briefly: (1) a computer-based approach to management and planning designed to answer what is to be learned, how is it to be learned, and has it been learned; (2) a problem solving design for accountability that…

The Conejo Valley (CA) Unified School District Educational Results Information System (ERIS), a generalized District master program assessment plan to obtain results information for decision-makers at all levels, has been developed. This plan establishes guidelines, evaluates the current status of the use of educational results information and…

As a result of using the Rasch model in building item banks in reading and mathematics, we were able to design two new testing programs for our district. The first was a grade level competency-based evaluation program designed to identify our district's low achievement-level students as well as the precompetency goals on which they needed help.…

Key findings of a pilot study of the Alaska Instructional Diagnostic System (AIDS) are summarized. The AIDS pilot test served to verify the appropriateness of the skills survey as well as the validity and reliability of the items. The AIDS testing system includes three components: (1) upper level skills surveys (grades 3-8); (2) lower level skill…

Information is presented regarding the administration of the North Carolina Minimum Skills Diagnostic Testing Program. This testing program, mandated by the state's basic education program under the Secondary School Reform Act of 1984, checks the necessity for remediation by determining a student's mastery of specific objectives and diagnoses…

This report is designed to provide numerical data about student performance on the curriculum of the Boston (Massachusetts) Public Schools (BPS) as measured by curriculum referenced tests (CRTs). BPS Department of Educational Testing analyzed data from the 1986 CRT final exams in: reading and language arts (grades K-8), high school English (six…

As part of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, a sample of approximately 2,000 fourth and seventh grade students were tested in music and metric measurement. Teachers and curriculum specialists helped to develop individualized tests which could measure the attainment of objectives that could not be tested with group-administered items,…

The State Summary of Results presents a compilation of the scores of Michigan's fourth and seventh grade students who participated in the educational assessment along with discussion of the possible meaning and significance of the results. It also attempts to respond to the controversy which has surrounded the assessment program since its…

Key pieces of information that are currently available and relevant to setting targets for achievement are organized to help inform goal setting. These include levels of academic proficiency during elementary school, middle school, and high school; rates of high school completion; and levels of literacy of young adults. Much of the information is…