This report contains the proceedings of a forum held on June 28, 2023 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to discuss issues surrounding meaningful accessibility of assessments. The forum was a post-session to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) and was a collaboration of the "Assessment,…

The Praxis test is one of a series of national teacher certification exams written and administered by the Education Testing Service (ETS) since 1947. Currently, forty states now require some form of the Praxis Series (Educational Testing Service, 2011). Using pre- and post-tests similar to the Praxis I math exam, this study examined the affect…

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is the nation's oldest and largest urban school choice program, offering private-school scholarships to low-income students in the city of Milwaukee since 1990. In the early years of the program, voucher schools were not required to test their students, though many of them did so using nationally normed…

This paper profiles Wisconsin's test score trends through 2008-09. Between 2005 and 2009, the percentages of students reaching the proficient level on the state test and the basic level on NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) increased in math at grades 4 and 8 and in reading at grade 8. In grade 4 reading, the percentage scoring…

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002), there has been increased interest in using student achievement data (through standardized tests) to evaluate teacher effectiveness. Two U.S. Department of Education secretaries, Secretary Spellings and Secretary Duncan, have expressed interest in growth models and the need to…

This report discusses the progress of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) evaluation and presents a brief summary of the main findings of the seven distinct topical reports that have been completed for 2007-08--the second year of the evaluation. Those seven specialized reports build on the five reports that were released in 2008 and are:…

The adoption of state accountability testing in the 1990s coincided with the movement of some school start dates from September into August. Using data from Wisconsin, this paper connects these phenomena, showing that some low-scoring districts advanced their school start dates to allow their students more time to prepare for exams. I use a 2001…

This report provides an overview of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the author's plan for evaluating it over a five year period. It also presents a brief summary of the main findings of the four distinct topical reports that the author and his colleagues have completed for 2006-07--the baseline year of the evaluation. Those four…

A review of the work of an affective sub-committee of the Nucleus Testing Committee is provided. Proposed recommendations of the sub-committee are that: (1) the committee as a group identify an important question in the affective domain and design a testing project by which to gather data to answer the question; (2) a set of guidelines for the use…

A study examined the results of an administration of a series of theoretically based prototype tests to 857 high school students in California, New York, and Wisconsin. By revising the existing framework of a prior study, tests were devised which attempted to measure three interrelated aspects of school literature: background knowledge, the…

The city-wide standardized testing program of Madison Public Schools was reviewed by a committee of a cross-section of school system educators as part of a total effort to design a testing program more sensitive to the needs of the system. As a result, standardized testing was reduced to reading (grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8) and mathematics (grade…

Reports results of a study conducted to determine the level of occupational knowledge of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders and the extent to which these levels are influenced by the rural community in which the students live. It was concluded that a career education program would provide more knowledge of non-local occupations to give rural…

The activities of the Nucleus Testing Committee, particularly its Curriculum Related Subcommittee, of the Madison, Wisconsin public schools are described in relation to its effort to bring about increased awareness of the need for reexamination of both district-wide and local school evaluation procedures. The sub-committee's recommendations are…

This paper provides information on testing programs for elementary and secondary school students that are administered or coordinated by the Office of Educational Accountability within the Wisconsin State Department of Public Instruction. The first section provides background and definitions of assessment alternatives, including various types of…

A RESEARCH AND GUIDANCE LABORATORY WAS SET UP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. THE SUBJECTS WERE SUPERIOR STUDENTS CHOSEN FROM OVER A HUNDRED WISCONSIN HIGH SCHOOLS. THE STUDENTS WERE TESTED AND COUNSELED AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR FROM NINTH GRADE THROUGH GRADUATION. THE LABORATORY PERMITTED EXHAUSTIVE STUDIES ON THE CHARACTERISTICS, DEVELOPMENT, AND…