The activities and results of the first year of a two-year student assessment pilot program are described, based on a 1978 mandate by the Kansas Legislature requiring the development of minimum competency objectives in the areas of reading and mathematics for students in grades 2, 4, 6, 8, and 11 and instruments for assessing those competencies.…

A minimum standards amendment to the New Jersey Public School Act of 1975 requires the testing of public school students to determine proficiency in the minimum basic skills of reading and mathematics, under the auspices of the New Jersey State Department of Education's Educational Assessment Program. To meet the mandates of this amendment, the…

Procedures for administering the Proficiency Testing Program, adopted by the Idaho State Department of Education, are explained in this test administration manual. The tests are described as given on a district optional basis to ninth grade students in the basic skills areas of reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics. Criterion-referenced…

Intended for federal, state, and local policymakers, the document looks at the actual policies and practices of local and state education agencies in carrying out their minimum competency requirements, with particular emphasis on the mandates of P.L. 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act…

Most people seem to think the test will lead to improvement in education. Teachers, however, feel they are being made scapegoats and blacks feel that one crop of eleventh graders is being punished for not being able to make up in one year what they haven't learned in eleven. (Author/IRT)

The Connecticut Teacher Assessment Center Project has, since 1986, been developing a semistructured interview in the area of mathematics to evaluate beginning teacher competence. The strategy for validation of the project's performance tests, Connecticut's reform initiatives, and implications of systematic validity for traditional psychometric…

Item specifications developed by the Arkansas Department of Education as part of the Minimum Performance Testing Program (MPT) appear in this document. Specifically, the social studies materials given to sixth-grade students on the MPT are included. The purpose of an item specification is to provide an overview of the general content and format of…

A study was designed to assess the effects of the introduction of a state-mandated minimum competency test (MCT) on students' acquisition of basic and high-level mathematics skills. Subjects of the study were ninth-grade students, all of whom attended the same schools in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, and took the same form of the…

In 1984 an evaluation team examined the Maryland Functional Testing Program (MFTP), a statewide competency-based, criterion-referenced testing program that was instituted to limit awarding of high school diplomas to those students who had earned scores above cut scores on a series of achievement tests. This article examines the procedures the…

This report presents an analysis and synthesis of student performance data collected through state-mandated testing programs. The common performance areas assessed were basic skills achievement. The unique performance areas assessed were content skills within a particular state. Achievement data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress…

This report consists of data tables summarizing test results statewide for students in grades 11 and 12 who took the New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) test in March, 1987. The MBS assesses minimum skills in reading and mathematics. It is used as the graduation test for students who entered ninth grade prior to September 1985 and have not yet…

This test booklet contains a two and one-half-hour achievement test in Social Studies 30, administered in June 1985. It is used as a twelfth grade diploma examination in Alberta, Canada. The multiple choice section, comprising 70 percent of the total score, contains 70 items. For the essay test, which counts toward 30 percent of the total score,…

This test booklet contains a two and one-half-hour achievement test in Social Studies 30, administered in January 1985. It is used as a twelfth grade diploma examination in Alberta, Canada. The multiple choice section, comprising 70 percent of the total score, contains 70 items. For the essay test, which counts toward 30 percent of the total…

Results are summarized for a number of tests administered to secondary school students in Idaho. A description of each test and the students tested is provided, as well as the purposes of the test and a brief summary of results. Two tests administered especially in Idaho are included. The Idaho Proficiency Test, a criterion referenced test of…

Provided as a framework for use in curriculum development are Arkansas' course content guides for the primary grades one, two, and three. At each grade level, language arts, mathematics, and reading skills have been identified at three instructional levels: basic, developmental, and extensional. Basic skills are those which all students must…