This paper offers reflections on various presentations at the March 1999 convention of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development in San Francisco. The presentation, "Links between National Standards and Successful Classroom Strategies," is guided by two questions: (1) How are teachers, schools, and school districts promoting…

In the United States, standardized educational tests have been used for assessment purposes in grades K through 12 almost since the inception of the testing movement in the early 1900s. Because test-based assessment can have wide-ranging positive or negative effects on K-12 students, the test user must ensure that the tests used for assessment…

As testing has taken on a more significant role in the college admission process and, more recently, in K-12 education through the increasing popularity of high-stakes testing, so have the urgency of questions surrounding test preparation initiatives, through both private and educational ventures and school-sponsored preparation programs. This…

Despite their limitations, early evaluations of voucher programs provided program operators and evaluation teams with opportunities to learn the problems accompanying the study of school vouchers. Subsequent voucher programs in Dayton (Ohio), New York, and Washington, D.C., were designed to allow for the collection of high-quality information…

In 1999, the LegiSchool Project planned to conduct the 12th in its series of televised Town Hall Meetings to provide a forum in which California high school students, educators, and legislators can engage in face-to-face dialogue about problems of mutual interest. For 1999, the topic is standards and tests in California high schools. This guide…

This CD-ROM contains more than 150 technical reports, 25 newsletters, 2 videos, numerous assessments, some scoring rubrics, guidebooks, and research articles, representing the comprehensive results and products from a long federal investment in K-12 assessment and evaluation research through the National Center for Research on Evaluation,…

Considered the fact that the scores of high school students taking the entrace tests for college acceptance have steadily declined. Author analyzed the validity of the testing process. (RK)

Article attempts to explain some basic information about standardized tests-test jargon, facts on test construction, administration, use and abuse. (Author/RK)

Analyzes the uses that can be made from test data and the influences such data can have on communication with communities, in the evaluation of school's effectiveness, and student's placement. (Author/RK)

Small samples of students were chosen from two extreme types of schools (affluent-suburb and inner-city) to investigate the problem of presenting exercises in a manner students understand. The results raise questions about teaching procedures and the National Assessment evaluation. (DF) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this…

Author maintains that educational testing is based on conservative and established norms of existing social structure. Test scoring is unbiased, but the bases underlying the interpretation of scores are contaminated by prejudices which operate to keep competence from obstructing the social process. (AD)

Group and individual forms of a measure were developed to assess the acquisition of behaviors desired as outcomes of instruction in science at the elementary school level. Significant differences between the scores of individuals on the group and individual measures were observed. (LC)

A number of major studies are discussed concerning the effects of testing on schools and needed changes in test use to improve education. Test use is analyzed at building and classroom levels for insights on better education, and at local, state, and national levels for oversights of educational progress. (Author/CM)

Separate selection and pretesting of students eliminate regression effects in the pre-post achievement gain measured in the RMC Model--A method of program evaluation. (CP)