Recent years have produced a surge in interest in improving state assessment programs. Many states are designing new assessments. Much of this innovation is aimed at addressing longstanding areas of unhappiness with typical domain-sampled, end-of-year state assessments: States want to streamline assessment activities, enhance the instructional…

In the summer of 2011, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to provide a four-day training for all evaluators across the state. NIET trained more than 5,000 evaluators intensively in the state model (districts using alternative instruments delivered their own training).…

The gold standard in making causal inference on program effects is a randomized trial. Most randomization designs in education randomize classrooms or schools rather than individual students. Such "clustered randomization" designs have one principal drawback: They tend to have limited statistical power or precision. This study aims to…

In most large-scale assessments of student achievement, several broad content domains are tested. Because more items are needed to cover the content domains than can be presented in the limited testing time to each individual student, multiple test forms or booklets are utilized to distribute the items to the students. The construction of an…

The impact of achievement testing on a Spring-Spring vs. a Fall-Spring basis in evaluation of compensatory education programs is examined. The effects of the summer vacation period and crossing test levels were examined. Significant decreases in achievement test scores were found, at all grade levels, between Spring and Fall test administrations.…

There are four steps in obtaining test data, each requiring planning and decision-making: assembling students, administering tests, scoring, and recording scores. In assembling students, two cautions are in order. First, for norm referenced tests, students in the treatment group should take the test at the same time of the year as the students in…

Northampton County Area Community College (Pennsylvania) studied changes in student writing ability using a research paradigm described in the ERIC Clearinghouse for Junior Colleges' fifth topical paper (ED 030 422). Students in seven English classes were randomly assigned to write on one of two topics at the beginning of the semester, and asked…

Several sets of data are analyzed, all of which demonstrate that estimates of achievement rates can differ dramatically when different time periods are used for an evaluation of a compensatory education program. Specifically, it is found that including the summer months in an evaluation often considerably reduces estimates of achievement and hence…

This paper delineates several problems which arise when criterion-referenced test results are used to evaluate the effects of a specific educational treatment. Focus is on these topics: (1) the aggregation of individual students' data on objectives, (2) the sensitivity of the instrument to instruction, (3) the interpretation of…

This report gives the 1990 results of the Primary Assessment Program (PAP). The program monitors achievement in reading and mathematics in urban and Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory (Australia). It provides feedback to schools on the performance of their students in basic skills and provides indicators of performance for public…

Due to a concern regarding the validity of Chicago public elementary schools standardized test scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, a test audit was conducted. The audit was limited to 40 schools. Two schools were selected from each of the 20 administrative districts, with each school testing one seventh- and one eighth-grade class. These…

The aims of the report are threefold: (1) to assess the general level of social studies learning of seventh grade students in California public schools; (2) to provide a comparison of the general level of social studies learning to those of other curriculum areas; and (3) to provide a comparison of the relative level of social studies learning by…

Two Basic Skill Centers were set up in Minneapolis in 1969 to help inner-city students improve their reading skills. This report covers the fourth year's operation of the project. The goals of the program include remediation of subskill weaknesses, achievement of functional reading levels, and raising the rate of reading growth of children in…

The validity of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) and problems associated with inappropriate norms were investigated in eleven senior high schools in Phoenix, Arizona. CTBS validity was assessed in three ways: (1) correlation between test scores and number of courses taken in that subject; (2) correlation between CTBS scores and…

This year the Center on Education Policy (CEP) analyzed data on the achievement of different groups of students in two distinct ways. First, it looked at grade 4 test results to determine whether the performance of various groups improved at three achievement levels--basic and above, proficient and above, and advanced. Second, it looked at gaps…