Efforts to improve college-completion rates have dominated higher education policy agendas. Performance-based funding (PBF) intends to improve college completion and links state funding for public colleges and universities to performance measures. One critique of PBF policies is that institutions might restrict student access. This study uses a…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is gaining increasing attention in education policy and practice due to growing evidence that related constructs are strongly predictive of long-term academic achievement and attainment. However, the work of educators to support SEL is hampered by a lack of available, unbiased measures of related competencies. In…

A chasm is growing between our rapidly rising aspirations for our educational systems and what schools can routinely accomplish. Education needs an improvement paradigm--one that recognizes the complexity of the work of education and the wide variability in outcomes that our systems currently produce. This article sketches out such a paradigm. It…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act required states to adopt accountability systems measuring student proficiency on state-administered exams. The federal legislation contained several strict requirements for NCLB implementation, such as escalating student proficiency targets that reach 100% proficiency by 2014. But it also gave states…

Current interest in teacher evaluation focuses disproportionately on measurement issues and performance-based pay without an overarching theory of how evaluation works. To develop such a theory, I contrast two motivation theories often used to guide thinking about teacher evaluation. External motivation theory relies on economics and extrinsic…

Prevalence of academic risk (PAR) group profiles provide data enabling empirically based group-specialized prescriptions for targeted academic success interventions to increase student retention, completion, and graduation rates, while improving allocation of institutional resources. Postsecondary student attrition engenders student debt,…

This article examines the logic underlying different models for assessing the college readiness of high school students. It focuses on benchmark scores that purportedly identify students who are college ready and presents the challenges of using threshold scores from a single assessment instrument to represent readiness. As well as providing…

The dangers of a single story in current U.S. large-scale writing assessment are that assessment practice does not align with theory and this practice has negative effects on instruction and students. In this article, I analyze the connections or lack of connections among writing theory, writing assessment, and writing instruction, critique the…

Responds to letters to the editor regarding comments on semantics, psychometrics, and assessment reform regarding authentic assessment of student academic achievements. Suggests that psychometric concerns need to be addressed. (MMU)

Discusses authentic assessment of student performance as it relates to academic improvement and educational reform. Points out that there is too much testing of basic knowledge and skills out of context, and too little teaching of complex concepts. (MMU)

Comments on the discussion by Ginette Delandshere and Anthony Petrosky of the numerical rating of complex performances in the context of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Early Adolescence/English Language Arts assessment. Conceptualizes the discussion in terms of matching information to purpose in testing. (SLD)

Responds to Susan Brookhart's comments on the discussion of assessing complex performances by Delandshere and Petrosky. Notes that the article focused on the meaning and usefulness of scores or ratings in the context of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards assessments. (SLD)

Examines measurement concepts and assumptions traditionally used in educational assessment, using the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts assessment developed for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as a context. The use of numerical ratings in complex performance assessment is questioned. (SLD)

Questions the claims by advocates of educational assessment reform, highlighting the work of Wiggins, who introduced authentic assessment. Discusses the origins of authentic tests, authenticity and validity, and assessment and educational philosophy, concluding that promotion of authentic assessment is flawed because "authentic" is misleading, and…

Authentic and direct assessment of performance and products are examined in light of contrasting functions and purposes with implications for validation, especially those of specialized validity criteria for performance assessment. The roles of positive and negative consequences of validation are underscored, along with the need for evidence of…