Assessments matter in education. Testing is nothing new; tests have been around as long as school itself. However, over the last 15 years, state assessments have grown to be an increasingly central, and often controversial, part of schooling. As states raise their standards, it is more important than ever to ask: What is a high-quality assessment?…

With funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Virtual Performance Assessment project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is developing and studying the feasibility of immersive virtual performance assessments (VPAs) to assess scientific inquiry of middle school students as a standardized component of an accountability…

Education policymakers and leaders often say that the opinions and observations of teachers are among the most important information to help explain and understand what is happening in schools. Teachers' voices can inject a sense of classroom and school-level realism into those discussions and add clarity and credibility to issues that are often…

While today's curriculum is largely driven by standards, many teachers find the lack of specificity in the standards to be confounding and even intimidating. Now this practical book provides middle and high school teachers with explicit guidance on designing specific objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to…

Reviews two models for assessment, the measurement model and the standards model, their underlying assumptions about learners, and the resulting implications for performance-based test development. Discusses the current testing debate, defines terms such as "authentic assessment" and "performance-based assessment," and…

This document describes state and local elementary and secondary education standards developed for academic achievement and assessment of student progress in Missouri. In response to the Outstanding Schools Act of 1993, the Show-Me Standards were established to represent knowledge students should acquire and how they should be able to communicate…

This paper reviews a year's work with third-grade teachers who introduced performance assessments in the hope of improving both instruction and assessment in mathematics. The 14 participating teachers in 3 schools tried many changes in their educational and assessment practices. Patterns of stability and change that resulted from their efforts…

This booklet is designed to help parents and community members answer questions about assessment in the context of the Vermont Framework of Standards, the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1997, and other statewide initiatives. Assessment is changing in Vermont in response to new legislative mandates that call for standards-based assessment…

What occurs in most schools and colleges is a ritual pretense lacking substance. Test scores and memorized facts mean little. John Dewey felt that education must be a continuous expansion of a web of connections and understanding that continues throughout one's life. Wisdom is education's true goal. (MLH)

New Standards Project is consortium of 17 states and 6 leading school districts working with cluster of specialists to design and implement system of performance standards, authentic assessments, and professional development aimed at improving educational equity and excellence. New matrix examinations and portfolios will yield results that can be…

The New Standards Project, attempting to create an assessment system comprised of performance exams, portfolios and projects, may not have fulfilled its promise to create a national system of tests worth teaching to. However, NSP did deliver high- quality professional-development opportunities for hundreds of teachers across the nation. (Contains…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is one part of a comprehensive assessment system that is evolving in the United States. In the view of the NAEP Technical Subgroup for the National Education Goals Panel, the NAEP should be an independent, statistically rigorous longitudinal measure of educational attainment in the essential…

Good performance criteria can and must help define educational goals and serve as an instructional tool in the classroom. The rationale for considering instructional usefulness when designing performance criteria begins with the proposition that clearly stated performance criteria are excellent instructional tools. It is also apparent that…

Examines reasons why student assessment is undergoing reform, discussing how such reform may affect the nation's schools. The paper describes why school reform is occurring, notes how reform of assessment fits school reform, explains types of assessments and assessment designs, and highlights practical and technical challenges inherent in using…

Designed for general and special education administrators, teachers, and other education professionals, this book offers a "big picture" of high expectations, assessment, and accountability for students with significant disabilities. Chapters focus on the following eight steps involved in the development and administration of alternate…