Present schooling culture reflected in narrowly conceived testing, grouping, and grading programs discourages the kind of sustained, collaborative inquiry that should characterize America's schools. Assessment programs must change to promote instruction systems that encourage student initiative and perseverance to pursue unanswered questions.…

The Alaskan Eskimos are an indigenous people beset by underemployment, economic dependency, low self-esteem, and feelings of inferiority in the face of the dominant white culture. Although a well-financed bilingual program is offered, students at Brevig Mission School speak Village English, a combination of English and Inupiaq. Often, test content…

This study examined the scores obtained by 21 elementary-level gifted students on 4 different intellectual measures--Stanford-Binet (LM), Stanford-Binet (Fourth Edition), Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test, and the Cognitive Abilities Test. Results showed that the population of gifted students identified will vary greatly depending upon which test…

A perusal of the national testing proposals discloses great variety as to testing purposes and methods, voluntariness testing age and grade, subject areas to be tested, responsible parties, and financing. Advantages and disadvantages of U.S. national testing proposals are discussed and contrasted with European approaches. (14 references) (MLH)

Howard Gardner is known for his theory of multiple intelligences, which holds that each individual's unique smartness cannot be measured by conventional IQ tests. Even the best students have flawed theories about existence and human behavior. Schools teach and assess everybody as though each has the same kind of mind. The ATLAS project respects…

Authentic assessment reflects the subject's content and process and the conditions for achievement, emphasizing whether students' progress is reasonable for their age and experience. Alternative assessments are having an effect on special education intervention, formative and summative evaluation, screening, referral, classification, and…

Reviews the use of tests with deaf students, especially reading-comprehension tests, noting documented differences in test-taking abilities of deaf and hearing students and specific compensatory test-taking strategies used by deaf readers. A rationale for including a formal test-taking skills component in the curriculum for deaf students is…

Comments on the discussion by Ginette Delandshere and Anthony Petrosky of the numerical rating of complex performances in the context of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Early Adolescence/English Language Arts assessment. Conceptualizes the discussion in terms of matching information to purpose in testing. (SLD)

Responds to Susan Brookhart's comments on the discussion of assessing complex performances by Delandshere and Petrosky. Notes that the article focused on the meaning and usefulness of scores or ratings in the context of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards assessments. (SLD)

A big problem with performance tests and standards is their specificity, or lack of generalizability. "Keeping no secrets" and "teaching to the test" for performance tasks and traditional tests are absolutely necessary if schools are to prepare students adequately to meet performance standards. This nontraditional approach…

Discusses appropriate ways to prepare students for performance assessments and proposes a list of six guidelines for teaching to performance assessments. The focus is on elementary and secondary education. It is believed that these guidelines will help balance the domain and sample problem. (SLD)

Examines three student accountability measures (standardized tests, performance-based assessment, and structural assessment) through two different theoretical perspectives: structural functionalism and feminist poststructuralism. Educators can use various kinds of assessments in ways that maintain the status quo or support equity and justice for…

The accuracy of 3 developmental screening tests administered to 89 young children was compared. The Battelle Developmental Inventory Screening Test was more accurate than the Academic Scale of the Developmental Profile-II and the Denver-II, identifying correctly 72% of children with difficulties and 76% of children without diagnoses. (Author/JDD)

Using 308 patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation, 2 regression equations were developed to predict weighted raw score sums for General Memory and Delayed Recall using the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) analogs of 5 subtests from the original WMS. The equations may help reduce WMS-R administration time. (SLD)

During the early 1970s, over 150 school districts and several states contracted with private companies to deliver instruction, and the Nixon Administration initiated a vast privatization field experiment in Texarkana. None of these performance contracting experiments significantly improved instruction. Instead, they raised issues of staffing,…