This exercise set provides access to the 134 items released from the first National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment conducted in 1970-71 with students aged 9, 13, and 17. The exercises are intended for use by state and local education agencies who may want to build their own assessment instruments. An overview of the…

The competencies, item specifications, and sample items for the reading measures devised for the Wisconsin Competency-Based Testing Program are provided in this booklet. Following lists of reading competencies to be tested for grades three, seven, and ten, the booklet presents guidelines used in preparing the tests and test items; general item…

Kansas law requires setting passing scores for the reading and mathematics competency test for 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 11th grade students, administered annually since April of 1980. New objective-referenced tests are prepared each year. Both judgmental (Angoff, Ebel, and Nedelsky) methods and empirical (contrasting groups and borderline) methods…

This booklet contains the competencies, item specifications, and sample items for the mathematics competency tests developed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for administration at grades 3, 7, and 10. Commonly referred to as the "shelf tests," they will be available for the first time during the 1985-86 school year. Ten…

The New York Regents Competency Testing Program has been designed to assure that all students develop adequate skills in reading comprehension, writing, and mathematics before graduation from high school. In this booklet, information is provided on two elements of the Regents Competency Testing Program: diploma standards and screening tests.…

California's Pupil Proficiency Law requires each local school district to adopt standards of proficiency in the basic skills of reading comprehension, writing, and computation. Students are to be assessed in grades 4-11. Students not making sufficient progress towards meeting the district's standards are to be provided with remedial programs, and…

This bulletin contains the specifications for the reading, writing, and mathematics subtests of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination. The reading test uses the multiple-choice Cloze procedure and consists of ten passages of approximately 100 words selected from textbooks, journals, documents for teachers produced by the State Department…

This bulletin provides information about the Florida Teacher Certification Examination. It describes the development of the examination and presents the specifications for each of the subtests. Competencies and subskills are tested in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, and professional education. The tentative examination schedule is…

The New York State Preliminary Competency Test in Reading is designed to measure a student's ability to understand written material of varying levels of difficulty. Results are used to evaluate a student's current level of achievement in reading and to indicate the extent of compensatory or remedial help which may be necessary to pass the final…

The reactions of local educators (teachers, principals, and central office personnel) to the initiation of statewide mandatory minimum competency tests and the effects of implementing these testing programs were studied. Variations among school districts within two states were considered. Items from a survey of individual educators were combined…

Results of this survey indicate that three important ways to improve high school student achievement are to increase daily attendance, improve study skills, and increase required courses. Two-thirds of the school district administrators responding rated increasing attendance as highly important. Almost half strongly favored increasing required…

This guide describes the background of the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TABS) program, objectives, and tests. It is designed to assist school personnel in reading and comprehending the student information contained in student performance data included in TABS reports. TABS is a criterion-referenced measure for assessment of student…

This booklet contains the 14 exercises that are used in the Bloomington, Minnesota, school system's writing assessment program. Depending on their applicability, the exercises may be used to assess the writing performance of fourth-, eighth-, or eleventh-grade students. Thirteen of the exercises are from the National Assessment of Educational…

Technical problems involved in obtaining scores for essays written by teacher candidates are addressed. The rating procedure assures that each essay is read by three raters specially trained for the task. Ratings range from "1" for incompetent or unacceptable to "4" for outstanding. The score assigned to each essay will be the…

A collection of 33 reading items are presented for state and local education agencies to draw upon in designing their own minimal competency tests. These items, developed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, have been reviewed in terms of their appropriateness for testing competencies required for high school graduation. The items…