Ten years have passed since President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB), making it the educational law of the land. A review of a decade of evidence demonstrates that NCLB has failed badly both in terms of its own goals and more broadly. It has neither significantly increased academic performance nor significantly reduced…

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…

Mandated testing is not working as advertised. Too much classroom time and energy is being spent on tests that do little to measure or instill in our students the skills and knowledge needed for their later life. Corruption and political manipulation of the testing process and test results further add to questions about the use of such testing.…

This policy brief addresses the inclusion of English language learners (ELLs) in large-scale assessments and ELL assessment accommodations. The inclusion of ELL students creates specific accountability policy challenges. States differ in the students they include and their inclusion policies and accommodation practices, and, at present, inclusion…

This paper summarizes what is known about the effects of Texas policies to raise academic standards, measure student performance, and impose consequences for results over the past decade. A careful review of the best available evidence shows that, while Texas has not yet achieved an education "miracle," the state has taken several steps…

Clear communication with parents about educational reform issues and the implementation of standards is essential. This publication presents ideas for state leaders on how better to inform parents about statewide assessments and how to report the results of these assessments to parents so that the results are more meaningful. The first section…

The Center for the Study of Evaluation's (CSE) Test Use Project (1979) has gathered information that is nationally representative and illustrative of the entire range of tests being administered. The primary intention of this phase of the ongoing study is to identify the direct and indirect costs of testing. The four papers included here offer…

In the context of the development of a possible national mathematics assessment, a study was conducted to determine whether a test item characterization scheme could be created based on a state policy document that serves as the driving force behind large-scale performance assessment. Further considerations were whether such an item…

Focusing on state-mandated minimum competency testing programs, this annotated bibliography cites 200 items selected from more than 700. The Resource Catalog is intended for state education policy makers and therefore includes resource and study guides; legislative and board action; conference speeches, reports and proceedings; curriculum guides,…

Test misuse is neither isolated nor recent. It is a problem that cannot be easily solved. While test misuse may be reduced or managed, it cannot be eliminated. Test misuse has cut across America's social, economic, and political institutions, including schools. The most flagrant abuse of a test is what happens to the results of the Scholastic…

Public school students, parents, and teachers are protesting "high stakes" standardized tests that bar many deserving students from promotion or graduation. A typical high stakes test is a state-mandated 10th-grade test that students must pass to graduate high school. They are called high stakes because a student's entire high school career rides…

The relevance of state results on tests of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is illustrated with data from the "Digest of Education Statistics--1990" (U.S. Department of Education). Evidence indicates that the contributions of state differences such as economic or demographic differences to NAEP results cannot be…

The paper reviews previous research studies and conferences which have dealt with the question of whether large-scale testing programs are effective. It is concluded that such programs, defined as efforts to determine the status of student achievement on a school, district, state, or national basis, are not serving the informational needs of the…

This paper summarizes the results of a study of the local consequences of implementing statewide minimum competency tests. For American education to be the best in the world, the use of statewide and nationwide standardized testing as a primary policy tool for stimulating reform must be discontinued. Second, school district responses to such…

Commissioned papers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have recommended new roles for NAEP, but its system of governance, as conceived in the 1960s, was not designed for all these functions. The NAEP Policy Committee, revised in 1978, never envisioned the current interest in a linkage system relating local and state…