This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically identify and employ decentralized cutoffs in SAT/ACT…

This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically identify and employ decentralized cutoffs in SAT/ACT…

Multiple popular math curriculum-based measures have recently been revised in ways that may improve their utility for universal screening. However, the applied use of these tools has yet to be evaluated independently. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the diagnostic accuracy of prior year statewide test results and aimswebPlus math…

Rasch and classification analyses on a field-test version of the third edition of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System (AEPS-3), a curriculum-based assessment used to assess young children birth to age 6 years, were conducted. First, an evaluation of the psychometric properties of data from each developmental area of an AEPS-3…

Early identification of at-risk students is a critical element of Response to Intervention (RTI) but there are few validated universal screeners for high school mathematics. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the screening system currently in use at one urban Texas public high school and compared its effectiveness to alternate screening…

RAND partnered with Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and American Institutes for Research to support the state's developmental education reform efforts through a combination of continuous improvement support and analysis of statewide data on implementation. One of the reforms examined through the study was the state's recommendation that…

For many students, developmental education is the largest obstacle to college success, hindering progress before they ever enroll in a college-level course. Postsecondary practitioners and researchers have been re-examining and challenging many traditional elements of developmental education from placement strategies to the sequence of courses…

About one third of college students are required to take remedial courses. Assignment to remediation is generally made on the basis of performance on a placement exam. When students are required to take a placement exam "prior" to enrolling in college-level courses, assignment to remediation may dissuade students from actually going to…

To successfully participate in today's global economy, young people must graduate high school with the skills and competencies that allow them to pursue further study and meaningful work. Yet the data around successful transition from high school to higher education, and then to the completion of a degree, show some alarming trends. In 2007, 70.5%…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. One important tool is the concordance table between MAP and state summative assessments. Concordance tables have been used for decades to relate scores on…

About one-third of college students are required to take remedial courses to redress the lack of preparation for college-level coursework. Assignment to remediation is generally made on the basis of a placement test score, and in some states students are required to take a placement test prior to enrolling in college-level courses. In this type of…

In this bulletin, we describe the processes and practices associated with "Evidence Based Standard Setting," which draw directly from the concept of evidence-based medicine.

This article investigates gender inequity in the National Merit Scholarship Competition. Results suggest the competition favors males due to their higher mean score on the mathematics section and greater variability on all sections of the PSAT, which shares differential validity concerns with the SAT in terms of gender. These instruments are…

The present study evaluated the stability of math learning difficulties over a 2-year period and investigated several factors that might influence this stability (categorical vs. continuous change, liberal vs. conservative cut point, broad vs. specific math assessment); the prediction of math performance over time and by performance level was also…

The following report of descriptive statistics addresses the matriculating class of 2001-2007 according to their Law School Admission Council (LSAC) index. Generally, this report will offer information on the first time bar and ultimate performance on the Bar Exam of TMSL students. In addition, graduating GPA according to the LSAC index will also…