The Adult Performance Level Test, a minimum competency test developed by the Texas Department of Education, measures student skill and knowledge levels in competencies necessary for successful living in a modern society. (MJB)

Reason and evidence provide little, if any, justification for the belief that minimum competency testing will help poor students to learn or poor teachers to teach. (Author)

Basic skills achievement test results of pupils in the Philadelphia School District, based upon the February 1979 Philadelphia City-Wide Testing Program involving kindergarten through grade 12, are reported. The city and district performance distributions show the combined percentages of pupils in scoring within various national percentile rank…

This discussion of the mathematics portion of the examination includes topics covered, test development, and sample questions. (MP)

Explains how to set up a testing program to measure student achievement of basic skills. (IRT)

Discusses the costs of developing, administering, and regulating state competency tests as well as of the compensatory programs that the tests will make necessary, and then suggests five ways of reducing these costs. (IRT)

Since 1960 Denver has operated a testing program designed to assure that high school graduates possess minimum competence in four basic areas--arithmetic, spelling, grammar, and reading comprehension. (Author/IRT)

The Jefferson County Schools (Colorado) are in the process of examining a district-wide testing program and selecting a new, standardized basic skills test. This paper describes the progress made to date. (LMO)

Describes New Jersey's coordinated, statewide higher education effort involving mandatory testing, remediation, and evaluation. Reviews the program's history; the role of the New Jersey Basic Skills Council (NJBSC); the Basic Skills Placement Test, which focuses on reading comprehension, sentence sense, math computation, and elementary algebra;…

Replies to the immediately preceding article. (IRT)

All students except the mentally handicapped are required to show by examination that they are able to read, speak, and understand ordinary English; write a simple, correct, intelligible paragraph; and perform with reasonable mastery fundamental mathematical processes. (Author)

State-level assessment is necessary so that parents, communities, and the legislature can know the cost and the benefits of the educational system as a whole. (Author/MLF)

Controversy over national testing programs for basic skills in Australia's elementary schools is discussed. The alternative suggested is to use those resources to improve local methods and skills in student assessment, depending more on the interest and abilities of those directly concerned with the students' learning. (MSE)

Competency assessment is used for diagnostic purposes at the City University of New York (CUNY) Queens College. CUNY had decided that all students admitted after 1987 be tested. In addition, minimum competencies were required after the completion of 60 credits. Queens College chose to use the tests for entering freshmen for placement decisions,…

The Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Form U, is scored in two ways: number-correct and pattern. The latter makes use of the information about which particular items are answered correctly, giving more weight to the more discriminating items and making allowances for guessing. Critics have suggested that black students are penalized by pattern…