Public schools stress the need for students to become informed and engaged citizens, however social studies instruction is becoming marginalized in many elementary schools today, the very area where they learn citizenship and about the world around them. This study seeks to: understand the reason for the loss of instructional time for social…

Ninety-six high school students from school districts across Minnesota who received special education services for learning disabilities or mild cognitive impairments agreed to participate in an interview on their participation and accommodation use on Minnesota's Basic Standards tests, minimum competency tests in Mathematics, Reading, and Writing…

Adults in four North Carolina counties were surveyed to determine public attitudes about the high school minimum competency test (MCT) that determines which students receive a diploma. The interview form consisted of 18 questions with 5-point Likert response scale. Four additional questions requested specific responses. Interviewers were seven…

The Texas Examination of Current Administrators and Teachers (TECAT) is a basic literacy test that was administered to 202,000 educators in Texas in March 1986. An in-depth case study was undertaken to examine the effects of the TECAT. The 2-year project involved 10 separate data-collection studies including structured interviews with key…

Information was gathered about current state interest, activity, and concerns related to performance assessment for students. The Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing of the University of California (Los Angeles) conducted telephone interviews with directors of testing in each of the 50 states in the spring of 1990.…

Analyses of 10 raters' reasoning during think-aloud interviews provided evidence to support a model of the fundamental processes involved in rating standards-based, nonprescriptive portfolios. This process model provides a framework within which to conceptualize sound-rater reasoning and to identify reasoning that distorts the meaning of scores.…

Educators' perceptions of the effects of state mandated testing on instructional practices and curricular decisions were studied. An ethnographic interview study was conducted with 30 fifth- and sixth-grade teachers and 12 principals from Illinois, New York, and Tennessee. Forty-one of the 42 respondents agreed to have their interviews audiotaped.…

The Council on School Performance Standards, appointed in February of 1989 by the Governor of Kentucky, was charged with finding out what students in Kentucky should know and be able to do, and with determining the best ways to assess student learning. The Council met with six groups: community leaders; employers; parents; school administrators;…

A formative evaluation of a pilot review and appeal process for the Maryland Writing Test (MWT) is described. The MWT is a large-scale direct assessment of writing. A three-year pilot phase was to culminate in the implementation of an operational procedure for the review and appeal of scores impacting a pass/fail decision for examinees. The MWT…

The Statewide Assessment Program, administered by the Alaska Department of Education, tests all fourth and eighth graders in math and reading biennially. In 1985, the Department's Office of Evaluation, Assessment and Research undertook an evaluation of the assessment program to identify procedures which needed improvement and to determine the…

A summary of the educational assessment activities (as of early 1971) in each of the fifty states and District of Columbia is given. Information was gathered through interviews held in each state by staff members of ETS. Similarities in the activities of many states include the setting of statewide educational goals, application of a…

This paper places Kentucky's accountability program in the national context, and then describes how educators in four rural Kentucky school districts reacted to the program in the initial years of its implementation. The information is drawn from a qualitative study of the implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in these four…

Despite the number of studies investigating affective aspects of test taking, little is known about how students perceive the kinds of extended performance assessments currently being developed for state and local testing programs. This paper presents two studies that address these issues. In the first, hands-on science tasks were administered to…

Since 1988 the Vermont Department of Education has been developing an innovative statewide performance assessment program. In 1990, the RAND Corporation began evaluating the Vermont assessment program, focusing specifically on the portfolio component of its assessment system. This report presents results from the evaluation in the 1992-93 school…

This publication explores the relationship between state systemic reform initiatives and state student assessment programs using a database established by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory and interviews with state assessment directors in California, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Texas, and Vermont. States throughout the country are…