This is the second report on the school achievement of children 6-11 years old in the noninstitutionalized population of the United States as estimated from the Reading and Arithmetic subtest data of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) obtained in the Health Examination Survey of 1963-65. It contains findings by selected demographic and…

Computer-based assessment appears to offer the promise of radically improving both how assessments are implemented and the quality of the information they can deliver. However, as many states consider whether to embrace this new technology, serious concerns remain about the fairness of the new systems and the readiness of states (and districts and…

No one, least of all educators, would dispute that scholarly collaboration by all players in the educational pipeline is key to the seamless, successful progression of students from pre-K to university study. In reality, mutually defining the learning expectations common to K-12 and higher education often devolves into finger-pointing and…

This paper summarizes an approach to helping future educators to engage with key issues related to the application of measurement-related statistics to learning and teaching, especially in the contexts of science, mathematics, technology and engineering (STEM) education. The approach we outline has two major elements. First, students are asked to…

Four testing schemes are outlined: post-test only, pretest/post-test, the Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI) Model, and the EIPI Model which takes into account the learning style and the psychosocial background of the learner. The EIPI model has three phases: placement, counseling, and intervention. (RAO)

This book meets a demand in the science education community for a comprehensive and introductory measurement book in science education. It describes measurement instruments reported in refereed science education research journals, and introduces the Rasch modeling approach to developing measurement instruments in common science assessment domains,…

Educators have long operated under the assumption that principals have a significant effect on schools as well as the teachers who work there. These claims have been supported through a number of recent studies. According to these studies, principals have the potential to influence conditions within schools, and their influence can reach as far as…

Traditional comparisons of test score means identify group differences in broad academic areas, but fail to provide substantive description of how the groups differ on the specific cognitive attributes required for success in the academic area. The rule space method (RSM) allows for group comparisons at the cognitive attribute level, which…

Like other districts with schools that are not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals for five consecutive years, Hawaii is restructuring its low performing schools as required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. Unlike most other districts, however, Hawaii, a single statewide district, has been doing it for five years with the support…

The standards outlined in this book have been developed to provide criteria for the evaluation of tests, testing practices, and the effects of test use. The "Standards" provides a frame of reference to ensure that relevant issues are addressed. The first part of the book, "Test Construction, Evaluation, and Documentation,"…

Several test publishers respond to a charge of racism in testing, made by Robert L. Williams in the previous edition of this journal. Responding are: George Bennett of The Psychological Corporation, John Sommer of Houghton-Mifflin, Leo A. Munday of the American College Testing Program, Samuel Messick and Scarvia Anderson of the Educational Testing…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) has developed a system aiming to effectively place students in freshman and developmental English programs. The placement system includes: triangulating data from external test scores, with scores from a panel-marked hand-written essay (HWE),…

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…

We use a regression discontinuity strategy to produce causal estimates for the effect of remediation under Florida's test-based promotion policy on multiple outcomes for up to five years after the intervention. Students subjected to the policy were retained in the third grade, were required to be assigned to a high-quality teacher during the…

Over the last 10 to 15 years, a variety of efforts to transform American high schools have gained both public and private support. Significant among these are initiatives to implement Small Learning Communities (SLCs), part of a larger school reform and restructuring effort designed to address a variety of goals, including "downsizing large…