The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is working to increase the numbers of students with disabilities (SD) or limited English proficient (LEP) students who are included in the assessment. Information is presented on the changes made to the inclusion criteria, the types of accommodations being offered, new procedures implemented…

For the past 8 years, Research for Better Schools, Inc. (RBS) has prepared an analysis of state-wide trends in student achievement in the mid-Atlantic states (i.e., Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania). For this year, instead of quantitatively examining trends in student achievement scores, RBS decided to…

At one of a series of hearings on H.R. 6, the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1993, several experts discussed issues related to national assessment, assessment in Chapter 1, and state efforts to develop new forms of assessment. Eleanor Chelimsky, Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation and Methodology of the General…

The role and influence of mandated testing in educational reform are reviewed. Mandated testing refers to large-scale (districtwide or statewide) multiple-choice testing programs used for policy purposes of evaluation and accountability, which includes nationally normed standardized achievement tests and tests custom-developed to reflect state and…

The issue of a national assessment tool in the form of national testing has recently gained momentum. The expectation is that tough national tests would raise national standards and improve educational equity. The goals are ambitious ones and the stakes are particularly high for disadvantaged youth who currently experience the worst effects of…

Dutch secondary schools offer educational programs on four tracks, vocational and nonvocational. At the end of each program, a final examination is administered, with the test content areas determined by law, by the schools, and by the student's individual program. Assessment is by means of a written, nationally administered exam and…

The purpose of this research was to develop and test a method of identifying groups of students participating in a mandated statewide norm-referenced testing program who have undergone highly specific training in preparation for, or coaching during, test administration. The implementation of the analysis procedure was intended not only to identify…

Scotland has a system of national surveys of achievement intended to provide information for educational policy and practice. Testing of middle school students in the areas of mathematics, reading, English, and science, is designed to provide national information as opposed to information about individual pupils, schools or local authorities. This…

An assessment of the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) City-Wide Testing Program is presented to determine the effects of using customized achievement tests to achieve multiple purposes. The tests are derived from, or related to, the tests in a nationally standardized test battery, but include items written specifically to measure the local curriculum.…

The statewide student assessment programs of the 15 member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in the 1987-88 school year are described. Individual summaries of the testing programs provide information on the types of tests used in the SREB states--Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi,…

This study reexamines results reported by Angoff and Schrader regarding formula directions and rights directions for standardized tests. In that study, it was concluded that the two scoring directions were essentially equivalent. In this study, methodological concerns are discussed and additional data analyses undertaken. Among various…

Intended for teachers, this collection of articles on testing in the English language arts contains the following titles: "What Do Test Scores 'Really' Mean in Educational Policy?" by George F. Madaus; "Testing and Literacy: A Contradiction in Terms?" by Marilyn Wilson; "Throwing in the TOWL," by Mary Jane Curry; "Taking the Authority Figure Out…

The Professional and Administrative Career Examination measures judgment ability using comprehension and logical order of events item types. Since the verbal component of comprehension items is high, and since these items are extremely difficult to write and document, a search was conducted for a simpler item type for assessing judgment. Three…

Data are presented concerning the numbers of students taking the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) and the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), and their mean scores for the period 1959 through l976. The implications of these results in relation to changes in the candidate group…

A parallel Spanish edition was developed of released objectives and objective-referenced items used in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the field of Career and Occupational Development (COD). The Spanish edition was designed to assess the identical skills, attitudes, concepts, and knowledge of Spanish-dominant students…