In 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the landmark decision of "Brown v. Board of Education"--establishing the right to attend a desegregated school as a national constitutional right--but the decision contained fundamental ambiguities. The Supreme Court has never offered a clear definition of what desegregation means or laid out a…

Odyssey of the Mind is an international creative problem-solving program that allows participants to engage in spontaneous thinking and long-term analytical activities. This program has been in existence for 40 years and involved thousands of participants from around the globe. In September 2018, coaches and judges from a region in a Southern…

Background/Context: Pickering v. Board of Education, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968, is considered the high-water mark in the constitutional protection of public employee free speech. Two significant decisions issued by that Court since Pickering have limited public employees' expressive rights: Connick v. Myers and Garcetti v.…

A mom walks up to the District Attorney's desk in the Justice of the Peace Court with a total of six tickets as a result of her low-income children's truancy, three in her name and one for each of her three children. She faces the possibility of having to pay anywhere from $510 to $2010 in court costs and fines. Luckily for this mother, her…

In this article, we discuss conflict between law and science relative to the presumption in special education law that multidisciplinary teams and others identify the causes of problems giving rise to special education needs. First, we explain eligibility criteria, highlighting ambiguities therein and why criteria constitute a mandate for causal…

Web-based standard setting holds promise for reducing the travel and logistical inconveniences of traditional, face-to-face standard setting meetings. However, because there are few published reports of setting standards via remote meeting technology, little is known about the practical potential of the approach, including technical feasibility of…

Social scientists collect vital information that bears on issues of education policy. When the courts are faced with an opportunity to make a decision that shapes education, judges need access to high-quality research, but they must also be convinced that it can be useful in their decision making. This article approaches the question of how social…

School districts and credentialing agencies use information gathered in standard setting studies to establish minimum passing scores (MPS) for a variety of purposes. These scores may be used to make decisions ranging from subject remediation to licensure. Multiple standard setting methods may be used to provide a range of scores to the…

Sets forth and considers educational beliefs explicitly stated by the justices of the Supreme Court in major court opinions rendered in the 1980s. The justices' educational viewpoints, in general, have turned to an emphasis on control, discipline, order, authority, and the inculcation of traditional values. (60 references) (MLF)

Different procedures for setting cut points on achievement test scales provide the standard-setting participants with different information to support the unique judgment task associated with each procedure. This study examined how participants in standard settings used the different information from three different procedures in Kentucky in 2000.…

The court system touches the lives of many children in the school system, some through divorce, and others through their own illegal behavior. Principals and administrators need to infuse a functional knowledge of the legal system so that these children will be better able to cope and deal with life events that cause them to be placed in contact…

Some of the measurement issues encountered in the equating of performance assessments designed for use in teacher certification decisions are described. Analytic strategies based on examinee data that involve modification of existing procedures and judgmental strategies involving the judgments of experts to determine score equivalence are also…

Examines the history and diversity of research on interpersonal expectancy effects, showing that the expectations of psychological researchers, teachers, courtroom judges, business executives, and health care providers can unintentionally affect the responses of their research participants, students, jurors, employees, and patients. Uses…

Summarizes the experiences of a former science fair participant and judge in an attempt to make the typical rules for science fairs more understandable to any prospective participant. Includes categories of judging, items prohibited from display, a list of most difficult projects, and the source for more information on science fair rules. (JJK)

A key component of the Angoff (W. Angoff, 1971) method for setting cut scores is the target examinee. Expert judges are asked, following training and discussion, to consider the ability and the likely performance of some subset of examinees and to then estimate, item by item, the likely performance of such examinees on the test for which a cut…