How and how much should students be tested? What information should schools and districts be required to collect and monitor? And what should be done when that information suggests a school is not meeting the expectations? Those questions are at the heart of Congressional discussions regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary…

This report reviews the major international and regional large-scale educational assessments, including international surveys, school-based surveys and household-based surveys. The report compares and contrasts the cognitive and contextual data collection instruments and implementation methods used by the different assessments in order to identify…

Presents some specific questions that educators ought to raise about standardized tests and some alternatives to standardized tests. (Author/IRT)

This report summarizes the in-school field operations and data collection activities, as well as the administration decision-making, undertaken in Year 11 of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, (NAEP) from March, 1979 through July, 1980. The more pertinent summary data on the planning and conduct of Year 11 in-school assessment are…

In addition to some general and basic principles regarding the importance of an acceptable accountability system, a number of specific criteria for evaluating state accountability programs is provided. The stated purposes of such a system and the specific uses of the resulting data should be clear and concise. Local control must be retained and…

This final report summarizes Year 11 quality check activities for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A probability sample of 40 schools was selected for quality check purposes from all three age classes. One regular school was selected for each District Supervisor at each Age Class. Quality check activities were conducted in…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the analysis of data collected by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In simplest terms, the analysis can be characterized as establishing baseline estimates of the percentages of young Americans possessing certain skills, knowledge, understandings, and attitudes and…

The current progress of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is examined, and its background is summarized. Federally financed since the late 1960's, the NAEP is a survey of U.S. students' achievment in various subject areas. As an indicator of change in elementary and secondary educational achievement, it has received attention…

This paper presents strategies that address the needs of the school district assessment office for standardized procedures to support reliable and efficient test processing and reporting and that meet the needs of school staff for test administration guidelines. The key to test administration and processing quality is a knowledgeable test…

This report discusses alternate assessments that are to be used in accounting for the performance and progress of students with disabilities who do not participate in typical state assessments. Alternate assessments are data collection procedures used in place of the typical assessment when students cannot take standard forms of assessment. Four…

The multimethod approach used to collect a assessment data at the local and state levels for the Louisiana Teacher Assessment Program is described. This program develops information about a new teacher's competence that can be used to suggest instructional improvement activities and to decide on qualifications for certification. The first…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has the potential to become a national data system and to meet the rapidly expanding needs for educational information. Historically, NAEP has had the objectives of providing relevant information for federal, state, and local policymakers; establishing a research database; and monitoring…

Twelve teachers and two principals from the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union School District (Vermont) met to consider what a small rural school district can do to assess its own programs and to discuss how to go about program assessment with the goal of helping schools become effective learning organizations. The district serves about 1,800…

Assessment as conducted at Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) in Canandaigua (New York) has taken various forms and has been conducted under various names. This publication offers an overview of assessment at the college from a philosophical and historical perspective. In both general and specific terms, the efforts of the college to meet the…

The author, an executive director of Assessment and Accountability for the Poway Unified School District, relates how their school district implemented an assessment program with practical applications to teaching and learning. Rather than being yet another burden on teachers or a local report card on schools, the district's goal was to define…