Based on the results of a generalizability study of measures of teacher knowledge for teaching mathematics developed at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles, this article provides evidence that teachers are better at drawing reasonable inferences about student…

This report contains two papers that resulted from the Multilevel Evaluation Systems (MES) Project. The first paper is "Political and Practical Issues in Improving School Boards' Use of Evaluation Data" by Joan Herman. The second paper is "Principals: Their Use of Formal and Informal Data" by Shari Golan and Jeanne Dreyfus. The…

This paper describes a four-step approach to constructing a diagnostic test that provides precise but practical information on students' problems and needs for additional instruction or remediation. The approach is based on analyzing the structure of the domain to determine which skills within the domain need to be assessed to diagnose students'…

The purpose of the conference, "Wagging the Dog, Carting the Horse: Testing vs. Improving California Schools," was to discuss alternative perspectives on testing and evaluation in education and their role in improving teaching and learning. Four papers were presented: (1) "Using Educational Evaluation for the Improvement of California Schools," by…

The papers in this monograph address an issue of importance to educational policy and practice: the use of testing and evaluation to assess the quality of education and to facilitate school improvement. The authors consider the traditional role that testing has played in accountability and the role that assessment and evaluation can and should…

The Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) undertook a three-year study to provide educational policy makers with basic, new information on classroom achievement testing across the United States. Conducted from 1979 through 1983, CSE's research investigated a wide range of types of formal assessment measures as well as some less formal means for…

Using tests to reform education is not a new concept. National and state education policies reflect confidence in the power of assessment to encourage school improvement. New understandings of the nature and context of student learning are shifting the movement away from traditional multiple-choice tests to alternative assessments. The emphasis is…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of testing on teaching and learning, focusing on standardized norm-referenced tests. A questionnaire was administered to 85 kindergarten through grade 12 teachers from a large urban school district who were attending a teacher leadership workshop. Fifty-five respondents were from elementary schools,…

To understand how assessment, particularly alternative assessment, and practice interactions may differ among schools with different implementation contexts and different school cultures, this project is studying over time a set of schools representing different state and local policy contexts and including different student populations. Research…