According to Lorrie A. Shepard, claims that testing will serve equity very often are not true. From minimum competency tests in the '70s; basic-skills tests in the '80s; "tests worth teaching to" in the '90s; high-frequency, high-stakes tests in the '00s; and added layers of commercial interim tests in the '10s, it seems it has…

Describes a research project in a third-grade classroom that explored a spontaneous, bottom-up approach to developing and testing performance measures. After establishing project goals for reading and math instruction, the 14 participating teachers worked with University of Colorado researchers to develop summarizing activities, open-ended math…

In testing, educators have two competing intentions. They want to be fair in allowing students to demonstrate what they know without creating testing conventions and formats that let students pretend to know. Teaching-the-test literature shows that test scores can be inflated, meaning that they can go up without a generalized increase in…

Parental attitudes about standardized tests and performance assessments were studied through interviews with 60 parents or parent dyads in schools involved in a project to develop new assessments and through questionnaires completed by parents from control schools. Parent approval of standardized tests did not imply disapproval of performance…

Parent opinions about standardized tests and performance assessments were examined systematically. Mutually exclusive but randomly equivalent stratified samples from schools participating in a study of performance assessment and control schools were used to measure change in parent opinion over time. Approximately one-third of parents (n=105)…

The effects of performance assessment on student learning were studied in third grades in three suburban schools and matched control schools. Performance measures did not produce clear and immediate improvements in student learning, but some positive changes were seen in mathematics. (SLD)

As part of a larger study of implementation of alternative assessment, a survey of parent opinions about standardized tests and performance assessments was conducted in three elementary schools. In the three participating schools, 3rd-grade teachers attended workshops on assessment development and implemented these practices in their classrooms.…

Claims that national tests will improve student learning are explored, asking whether national examinations will ensure high-quality instruction and greater student learning and whether tests developed to meet urgent political deadlines will retain essential features of authentic curriculum-driven assessments. Part I presents research evidence on…

The effects of performance assessments on student learning were examined in a year-long project to help teachers in 13 third-grade classrooms begin to use performance assessments as part of regular instruction in reading and mathematics. The essential research question was whether students learned more or developed qualitatively different…

The place for standardized testing in Chapter 1 evaluation is discussed. There is substantial evidence available on the negative effects of high-stakes standardized testing, and there is a clear link between Chapter 1 requirements and the amount of testing in most school districts. Standardized testing is usually used to identify eligible…