Federal education legislation continues to emphasize the role of assessment in elementary and secondary schools. Perhaps most prominently, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; P.L. 114-95), requires the use of test-based educational accountability systems in states and specifies the…

The Title I, Part A program is designed to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and achieve, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and assessments. The program's goal is accomplished by providing supplemental funding for educational…

The Title I, Part A program is designed to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and achieve, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and assessments. The program's goal is accomplished by providing supplemental funding for educational…

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the student achievement performance on the state's standardized tests and Houston Independent School District's (ISD's) norm-referenced tests for students in Title I, Part A schools. This report discusses student performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), Texas Assessment…

Seventeen nationally normed, standardized achievement tests were judged appropriate by the Illinois Title I Test Review Committee for use with Model A-1 in evaluation of Illinois Title I programs. They are the California Achievement Tests, CIRCUS, Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Iowa Tests of Educational Development,…

Investigated two variance estimation procedures on a normed test treated as a criterion-referenced test. The first estimation procedure estimated the standard deviation systematically higher, whereas the second procedure's estimation was systematically lower than the actual standard deviation. (Author/RC)

The purpose of the research was to explore an alternative implementation strategy for Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I evaluation Model A; that is, the use of Rasch calibrated item banks rather than traditional norm-referenced tests. A methodology for obtaining normative information for such banks involved equating a normed test with…

In exploring factors inhibiting formal evaluation at the school district level, and limiting the utility of conventional achievement monitoring, this paper begins with a review of the actual origin of the Elementary Secondary Education Act's (ESEA) evaluation requirements, and the attempts to implement national evaluation of ESEA Title I programs.…

In assessing the validity of a norm-referenced model used in evaluating large-scale federal educational programs for disadvantaged children, gain estimates were shown as approximately equal with randomized control group model estimates compared by retrospective analyses of two databases. (Author/CM)

The tenability of the equipercentile growth assumption was investigated. This assumption is the basis of the norm referenced evaluation model (Model A) for Title I program evaluations, and supposes that a cohort of students, given no special educational intervention, will maintain the same percentile rank over the course of a school year, as…

Meta-analysis of Title I program evaluations shows the norm-referenced model overestimates positive effectiveness; while the regression-discontinuity design underestimates it. Potential biases include residual regression artifacts, attrition and time-of-testing problems in the norm-referenced design, and assignment, measurement, and data…

The internal validity of the RMC models, especially Model A, is examined. Concern centers on limiting evaluation to cognitive outcomes, using constant percentile as the no-treatment expectation, and using norms for one test to establish the expected no-treatment performance level for another test. (MH)

Because testing, in many different forms, currently plays such an important role in education, Elementary Secondary Education Act, Title I, the Division of Federal Assistance in the Vermont State Department of Education, prepared this brochure to present a general introduction to terms and phrases commonly used in testing and to highlight some of…

Two ESEA Title I evaluation models developed by the Resource Management Corporation (RMC), were field tested simultaneously with 560 Title I reading students, grades 2-8. Measuring instruments for models 1 and 2 were, respectively, the California Achievement Test (reading vocabulary section), a norm-referenced test; and the Tarmac Reading…

The RMC Research Corporation evaluation model C1--the special regression model (SRM)--was evaluated through a series of computer simulations and compared with an alternative model, the norm referenced model (NRM). Using local data and national norm data to determine reasonable values for sample size and pretest posttest correlation parameters, the…