These comments provide further details which expand upon the recommendations of the subcommittee on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Writing. Three issues are discussed. The first concerns how objectives of assessment in writing ought to be stated. The 1984 objectives are stated in general terms without reference to what might…

This paper reviews literacy and literacy assessment in America, in relation to the various National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessments. Literacy can be defined and assessed only in relation to literacy demands. A current concept of literacy distinguishes between reading comprehension as an outcome of lexical access and…

The reading objectives and the measurement specifications cited in this document are congruent with the Texas State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum. The objectives are provided for teachers and for test developers involved with the preparation of the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) tests. As of 1985-86 academic year,…

The California Assessment Program (CAP) presents the Survey of Basic Skills report for grades 3 and 6 of an Alameda County elementary school for 1982. This report begins with an overview of school and district achievement and progresses to more detailed information related to performance in specific skill areas and scores for different groups of…

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…

A needs assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is presented. It deals with cost, design and technical issues, and utility. Suggestions include cost reduction via assessment schedule cutbacks and re-use of released NAEP exercises; and a shift from federal to private funding by selling NAEP exercises with interpretative…

The purpose of this report is to provide the public with the results of the second Michigan Educational Assessment Program Career Development assessment of 4th, 7th, and 10th graders. The introduction provides a perspective with which to view the results. Section II explains how the assessment was conducted and how the data are organized and…

During the 1982-83 school year, students in the San Diego City School District in grades 3,6, and 12 were tested as part of the state-mandated California Assessment Program (CAP). The purpose of the CAP and the Districtwide Testing Program was to measure achievement in the basic skills. Matrix sampling (the procedure whereby students take only a…

A statewide sample testing of writing skills in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades was conducted by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program in the fall of 1982. This report, which shares the writing assessment information (historical, descriptive, and interpretive) for educational decision-making, was prepared in the hope of increasing…

The Social Studies Assessment Program was a province-wide assessment of Social Studies concepts, skills, and attitudes in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 in Manitoba (Canada) carried out during April, 1984. Designed to provide a profile of student performance on program objectives, the test was administered to a representative sample of students at each…

The activities of the Canadian Awareness Project involved the development and analysis of an assessment of general knowledge and understanding of Canadian history, geography and citizenship as demonstrated by a sample of elementary, junior and senior high school students in provincially-funded schools. Included in this report are the phases…

The "Education Evaluation and Remedial Assistance" section 10-14n of the Connecticut General Statutes, requires that the State Board of Education administer an annual statewide proficiency examination in basic reading, language arts, and mathematic skills to all ninth-grade students. This report describes the development of the test and…

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 minimum competency movement's rationale can be reduced to four problem-laden propositions: the state through its schools owes every child an education; a high school graduate should be at least minimally competent; schools should be held accountable for seeing to it that every child meets this standard; and to assure this, every child must be…

In discussing the third national assessment of reading and literature, four major points can be made. First, norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests ignore serious ethical and measurement problems, namely, we don't know enough about individual differences to do such testing and the outcome, social class tracking, is ethically…