The Texas Education Code requires the Commissioner of Education to develop and propose a system for evaluating the progress of students eligible for exemption from the statewide assessment program under current law. This report summarizes the proposed system for special education students. It includes proposed changes to the assessment and…

This report discusses the outcomes of a survey that questioned states about their development of alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate, even with accommodations, in state or district-wide assessment programs. In the survey, states were asked about a variety of developmental features of their alternate…

The British Columbia Learning Assessment Program is a province-wide program designed to aid in decision-making processes about curriculum revisions; preservice teacher education and in-service programs; resource allocations; and future research needs; and to inform various publics of educational attainment. The article provides an overview of the…

The provinces of Canada have sole and final legal responsibility for education. For some of them, the task of evaluation may be one they would rather not face, and for others, it may be too expensive. Nevertheless, the responsibility remains theirs. (Author)

Differences in the Texas Teacher Appraisal System scores of teacher subgroups over 2 years were examined for 2,366 teachers for scores on individual domains, sums of scores of the 1st 4 domains, and overall summary performance scores, as well as appraiser differences. Implications for teacher evaluation are discussed. (SLD)

Portfolios are the centerpiece of Vermont's statewide assessment program in mathematics. Portfolio scores in the first two years were not reliable enough to permit the reporting of student-level results, but increasing the number of readers or the number of portfolio pieces is not operationally feasible. (SLD)

Five articles in this special issue present the approaches to accountability found in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland, provinces that represent 85% of all Canadian elementary and secondary school students. The articles are then discussed by representatives of four national Canadian educational associations. (SLD)

The adequacy of linking statewide standardized test results to the National Assessment of Educational Progress by using equipercentile equating procedures was investigated using statewide mathematics data from four states. Results suggest that the linkings are not sufficiently trustworthy to make comparisons based on the tails of the distribution.…

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 collaborative efforts of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory have resulted in the State Student Assessment Program (SSAP) database. Information is collected annually about student assessment programs in each state, both in the area of traditional testing and in nontraditional…

Test developers continue to struggle with the technical and logistical problems inherent in assessing achievement across different languages. Many testing programs offer separate language versions of a test to evaluate the achievement of examinees in different language groups. However, comparison of individuals who took different language versions…

The standards-based educational reform initiatives of the 1990's call for assessment innovations to support high standards. To document state assessment policies and to develop policy recommendations for assessment innovations, the George Washington University Center for Excellence and Equity in Education surveyed state assessment directors in…

This paper offers a scenario for how educational assessment might change in response to market forces that affect not only the future of large-scale testing but also society in general. The scenario divides into three generations distinguished by the purpose of testing, test format and content, and the extent to which testing capitalizes on new…

This document provides the following 13 conference papers: (1) "Introduction: Where Do We Go From Here?" (D. J. Bateson); (2) "The Context of Classroom Procedures in Evaluating Students" (R. J. Wilson); (3) "Student Evaluation in the Ungraded Primary School: The SCRP (Systematic Cumulative Record of Performance)…

Teacher evaluation is receiving increasing attention. Texas is the largest state to adopt a statewide appraisal instrument. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) scores over a period of four years. The sum of scores of the first four individual domains and the overall summary performance…