To assist school systems in establishing computer competencies for inservice teacher training and personnel hiring guidelines, the North Carolina State Board of Education in 1985 approved the recommendations of a state task force, and identified three levels of computer competencies for teachers (K-12), i.e., competencies needed by all educators,…

The Kansas Minimum Competency Testing Program is designed to provide the public, the Kansas State Board of Education, and the Kansas legislature with descriptive profiles of student performance relative to minimum competencies in reading and mathematics. Results of the 1982-83 assessment are presented in this report. Included are overall test…

Several of the major considerations involved in implementing a statewide testing program are discussed. The test results provide information which influences the educational enterprise in matters of curriculum, instruction, guidance, and accountability. Tests to be used in an assessment program must be developed by the administering agency when…

During the spring of 1980, Texas tested all of its ninth graders for the first time as part of a legislatively-mandated competency program. This forced all Texas districts which already had established programs to decide whether to drop, modify, or retain them. The political, economic, and practical information which was important within the…

Guidelines are provided to assist New Jersey local school districts in improving and strengthening their graduation policies in accordance with the new law and regulations. Basic skills proficiency requirements have been enacted in Chapter 241, Laws of 1979. This law requires that students successfully pass tests in reading, writing and…

Instructional guidelines for grade 3 objectives being tested by the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TABS) are presented. The guidelines are designed to be helpful to primary grade teachers in clarifying expectations regarding the TABS tests. Looking at the grade 3 basic skill descriptions will indicate what students in kindergarten through grade…

An analysis of the assessment results and general findings of a statewide assessment in reading conducted in Hawaii in 1975 is presented in this report. Chapters provide a perspective on the assessment program, the preparation of the statewide assessment, the methodology used, the procedures for data analysis, and the results and findings of…

This final report describes a coordinated dissemination program that was developed to help provide educational information to the teaching personnel of the Puerto Rico Department of Education. Objectives, problems, accomplishments, and recommendations are included; appendices provide the program's budget, the questionnaire used to assess the needs…

The Nebraska Assessment Battery of Essential Learning Skills (N-ABELS) is a goal-oriented instrument with an evaluation component providing a basis for determining acquisition of twelve skills defined as learning goals. Each goal is stated in terms of an acceptable performance standard which clearly describes what the student must do. The skills…

Lawrence Central High School (LHS) is a suburban school near Indianapolis, Indiana, that implemented in 1998-1999 an extensive remediation program to increase the passing rates of their students taking the state's mandated competency examination, the Indiana State Testing for Education Progress (ISTEP) examinations. The number of students in the…

Two years after the implementation of Florida's Educational Accountability Act, which mandates statewide competency testing in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the author cites the advantages of the program, refutes criticisms of it and reviews the challenge to it in Federal District court, the Debra P. V. Turlington case. (SJL)

The 1986 scores from the Statewide Student Assessment Test-II, a minimum-competency test required for high school graduation in Florida, were placed on the scale of the 1984 scores from that test using five different equating procedures: (1) linear method; (2) Rasch model; (3) three-parameter item response theory (IRT)--concurrent method; (4)…

The Registered Holistic Scoring Method, which has been used for one year to score the ninth grade writing test of the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test, is described. Registered Holistic Scoring was developed from the previous holistic approach in order to provide more reliable scoring guidelines year after year. Two trained evaluators…

This volume of the "Teacher Handbook," a product of the extensive audit and revision of curriculum carried out by the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction in 1984 in order to develop a basic education program for the state's public schools presents a competency-based curriculum in library/media and computer skills.…

These five papers describe the methods, results, and implications of a multimethod approach to the establishment of standards for the three subject areas of the Alabama High School Graduation Examination (AHSGE). James E. McLean introduces the problems and methods involved by identifying three general approaches to scoring procedures found in the…