In international large-scale assessments, students may not be compelled to answer every test item: a student can decide to skip a seemingly difficult item or may drop out before the end of the test is reached. The way these missing responses are treated will affect the estimation of the item difficulty and student ability, and ultimately affect…

Recent Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) analyses find that cyber charter schools in seventeen states show consistently low reading and mathematics value-added test scores compared to traditional public schools serving comparable students. This generally accords with prior research. We hypothesize that the relatively poor…

This study clarifies achievement trends that occurred under NCLB and explains why NCLB reporting practices made those trends so hard to see. It concludes by describing important contributions that new PARCC exams can make and warns of new reporting problems that threaten to squander those contributions before they see the light of day.

Concern was expressed for the possible effects of testing Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I students with norm-referenced tests that may be so difficult that many students will have scores in the chance range. The likelihood of such students obtaining equal scaled scores if they were tested with easier out-of-level tests was…

Item parameter estimates derived through item response theory methods have been considered relatively robust to changes in item position and context, but the anomaly in reading scores from the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) illustrates problems with common population equating procedures when there are test form changes.…

Two major issues are addressed in this commentary on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment: the design of the reading proficiency scale and interpretation of test data; and the dimensionality of this scale and the possibility of supplying data on specific skill dimensions. An examination of NAEP data and the…

The Los Angeles Unified School District has been concerned over the excess testing of elementary school pupils, particularly those who are in special programs. When the Board of Education decided to have yearly testing of pupil progress using a locally developed criterion-referenced test, the intention was to replace a previously used…

A study investigated the existence and direction of any change in reading standards of pupils in England and Wales between 1987 and 1991. The Reading Ability Series Test A was completed by two independent samples (comprised of 2170 pupils in 61 schools) of Year 3 pupils aged seven to eight years in the spring of 1991. The first sample consisted of…

Estimates of reading ability for second through fourth grade Title I pupils were obtained through grade-level and out-of-level testing. Results show that the method of testing affects the students' scores, the identification of pupils needing remedial reading instruction, and evaluation of the reading program. (JKS)

Describes the complex and sometimes conflicting components involved in reading assessment issues and proposes a solution that involves linkages among assessment audiences and approaches. Concludes with remarks about how school districts might pull together all the pieces and solve the assessment puzzle for themselves. (PRA)

In 1998, the British Government introduced the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in all state primary schools (encompassing students aged 5-11) in England in a bid to raise literacy standards. A year earlier, 13 local education authorities were involved in the piloting of the project, including the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The first Newcastle…

When a program evaluation is conducted on the basis of gains made in standardized achievement test scores between a pretest and a posttest, serious bias can result where a floor effect exists on one or both of the test levels. Based upon the expanded standard scores on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills from three successive regular spring…

Administrative and technical problems were encountered in carrying out a minimum competency program for high school students in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District. The history of required minimum competency testing was reviewed briefly, and the process of clarifying and operationalizing the requirements was described within the Austin…

While the seventh and ninth grade Maryland Functional Mathematics Tests (MFMT) appear valid and well constructed, the 65 percent passing rate for Montgomery County Public Schools' ninth grade students raises questions about the 81 percent passing score set for the MFMT. This standard is far stiffer than the 59 percent set for the Maryland…

At the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the call for all students to be "proficient" in reading and mathematics by 2014. Yet the law expects each state to define proficiency as it sees fit and design its own tests. This study investigated three research questions related to this policy: (1) How consistent are various…