Recent years have produced a surge in interest in improving state assessment programs. Many states are designing new assessments. Much of this innovation is aimed at addressing longstanding areas of unhappiness with typical domain-sampled, end-of-year state assessments: States want to streamline assessment activities, enhance the instructional…

Even as the Internet and i-devices have changed so many parts of people's lives, educational testing has not changed substantially in decades. Though researchers and educators have for years raised ample concerns about existing tests, assessments have barely evolved. Further, despite years of expanded testing and greater school accountability,…

This study investigates the benefits of no-stakes educational testing during students' summer vacation as a strategy to mitigate summer learning loss. Fifty-one students in Grades 3-8 from the Every Child Valued (ECV) and Lawrence Community Center (LCC) summer programs in Lawrenceville, NJ, took short, online assessments throughout the summer,…

This mixed-methods case study focuses on the third through fifth grade classrooms at a public elementary school in a Midwestern urban school district where the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment is being implemented. According to the school district, the goals of these tests are: to show…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing (SDHH) often use test accommodations when they participate in large-scale, standardized assessments. The purpose of this article is to present findings from the "Third Annual Survey of Assessment and Accommodations for Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing". The "big five" accommodations were reported by…

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is the nation's oldest and largest urban school choice program, offering private-school scholarships to low-income students in the city of Milwaukee since 1990. In the early years of the program, voucher schools were not required to test their students, though many of them did so using nationally normed…

This report examines the differences in impact estimates and standard errors that arise when these are derived using state achievement tests only (as pre-tests and post-tests), study-administered tests only, or some combination of state- and study-administered tests. State tests may yield different evaluation results relative to a test that is…

This quasi-experimental study measured the effectiveness of a locally created summer Algebra readiness program in a large suburban high school district in New Jersey. Incoming ninth grade students who were not ready for high school algebra were invited to participate in the summer program. The program was designed to provide access to more…

This study examined math achievement of elementary school students when Math Out of the Box (MTB), an inquiry-based math program, was used to supplement curriculum. The sample consisted of 767 New Jersey students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades, with approximately one third using MTB. Math achievement was measured by an assessment…

The U.S. public has consistently favored standardized testing in the schools, preferably with consequences (or "stakes") riding on the results, ever since the first polls taken on the topic several decades ago. Results from different polls approaching the topic in different ways suggest that nearly all Americans would like to see…

Many test-based accountability systems, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), place great weight on the numbers of students who score at or above specified proficiency levels in various subjects. Accountability systems based on these metrics often provide incentives for teachers and principals to target children near current…

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the measurement of child outcomes is the major stumbling block in estimating the extent to which equality of opportunity exists for children in our nation's schools. This paper has three parts. The introduction discusses the concept of equal educational opportunity, as defined and then redefined over the…

This reaction paper stresses the importance of matching the qualitatively different types of educational decisions with appropriate types of tests. Reading instruction is used to illustrate that while standardized tests are helpful for student classification and program accountability, they are hazardous to instructional process decisions which…

Three types of evaluation methods are discussed in terms of their use in evaluating both cognitive and affective learning in developmental programs: standardized tests; criterion-referenced tests; and naturalistic inquiries. Section I looks at the complexities of learning and the inherent difficulties in judging the quality and quantity of what is…

A project was conducted to develop a model for evaluating placement testing in the North Carolina System of Community Colleges. Researchers at Central Piedmont Community College conducted a longitudinal study of students' progress through the college curriculum as it related to placement test scores. The following numbers of students comprised the…