Three key terms--social studies, values, and attitudes--are discussed in relation to a national assessment in social studies. Definitions of these terms will affect decisions about what and how to assess. Two major approaches define social studies as: (1) social sciences simplified and adapted for pedagogical purposes; or (2) that portion of the…

Maryland is one of the states which recently developed new requirements for high school graduation. A preliminary evaluation of these new state standards has raised a number of issues about graduation standards and their assessment. The Maryland State Department of Education examined statewide policies and guidelines for high schools between 1982…

From 1946 to 1976, the field of higher education operated in a growth-based mode, encouraged by government decisions and financed by government funds. During the massive recession and exploding federal deficits of the early seventies, however, legislators began examining the real value of higher education, and asking whether higher education was…

To assess attainment of basic skills, the San Diego Board of Education mandates that all students in regular programs at grades 5, 7, 9 and 11 be tested by the Districtwide Testing Program. This evaluation report presents the academic achievement of Grade 11 (Fall 1984) students in comparison with (1) a national norm group and (2) previous years…

The effectiveness of an Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1 program was studied in a large urban school district. A common problem in evaluating remedial programs is that pretest/posttest achievement gains often indicate the effects of the entire curriculum, rather than those specific to the remedial class. In this district, over…

The process used by the Texas Education Agency to update public school teacher certification tests in a statewide program in Texas is described. The testing program implemented is called the Examination for the Certification of Educators in Texas. After a policy review, advisory committees for 63 test areas prepared content frameworks, created…

The goal of the 1981-82 examination of the Evaluation Scale (ES) of the City University of New York's (CUNY) Writing Skills Assessment Test (WSAT) was to ascertain if the descriptive criteria of the original ES, instituted in 1978, might be refined in the light of CUNY's four years of experience with large-scale testing at a multicampus…

The manual is intended to examine procedures in Florida school districts for evaluating handicapped students who don't speak English. A brief introductory section reviews the history of state and federal policy on the issue and summarizes the state's efforts to date. A subsequent section cites regulations and recommendations for practice in the…

To study the responses of school administrators to classroom testing and problems associated with it, practicing principals were presented with a case study. The case contained information on a district-wide report outlining inconsistencies in teachers' evaluation practices and a parental complaint about the evaluation practices of a staff member.…

These two booklets, one for juvenile counselor candidates and one for test administrators, provide information about the examination developed as part of the evaluation procedures for juvenile counselor candidates in the Standards and Training for Corrections program in California. The candidate information booklet (1) provides background…

This report concerns the governance of the structure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), especially the law and the role of the Assessment Policy Committee (APC). The major sources of evidence include interviews with APC members and National Institute of Education (NIE) staff, minutes of APC meetings and historical documents…

Major changes have occurred in compensatory education evaluation practices and policies since the introduction of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS) and the Technical Assistance Centers (TAC) in 1976. This paper has three purposes: (1) to discuss these changes at the state and local levels; (2) to illustrate these changes with…

Problems in the use of pupil achievement measures for evaluating teachers, schools or systems are reviewed, with the conclusion that they are disabling. The following reasons are cited: (1) What the pupil brings to the classroom in terms of ability, previous knowledge, home and peer influence, motivation, and other influences is clearly very…

This specialized bibliography provides a widely representative selection of materials on testing foreign language skills. It is divided into two sections. The first covers articles that have appeared in periodicals over the past two years and includes abstracts of each. These have been reprinted from volumes 1 through 9 of "Language Teaching and…

A number of issues concerning the evaluation of moral and civic education programs are discussed. Four program types are described: (1) rationalist, which involves a high cognitive knowledge of the law and legal processes; (2) actionist, in which students participate in out-of-class projects; (3) values clarification, in which students study,…