This first report in the 1974-75 Michigan Educational Assessment Program presents the objectives of the assessment program and indicates in detail some of the specific procedures to be used. The program provides achievement measures for grades one, four, and seven. The measures at all three grades are objective-referenced tests constructed through…

This report focuses squarely on strategies for instructional improvement in American high schools. Specifically, this study examines how high schools that perform below average incorporate their state's accountability goals into their own goals, identify their challenges, and search for strategies for instructional improvement. It focuses on how…

Technical questions regarding the reliability and validity of large-scale portfolio assessment were studied which focused on: (1) whether raters can score collections of writing reliably with rubrics designed for single samples; (2) whether ratings derived from different frameworks differ in their capacities to support technically sound…

This case study traces the evolution of curriculum-related educational reforms in California, concentrating on those that have influenced mathematics and science. These reform efforts are examined in the framework of the state's political and policy context. Data came from interviews, a synthesis of the research literature, and newspaper accounts…

The end-of-grade component of the North Carolina Testing Program was implemented in 1992-93 in response to state legislation. The end-of-grade tests emphasize higher-order thinking skills and the ability of students to solve real-life types of problems. These tests also reflect the higher standards set forth in national curriculum standards for…

A prevailing assumption underlying statewide performance-based assessments is that they not only serve as motivators in improving student achievement and learning, they also encourage instructional strategies and techniques in the classroom that are more consistent with reform-oriented educational outcomes. Given these high expectations, more…

This document reports the results of the Kansas Assessment Program for reading and mathematics for 1999. The mathematics assessment is given in grades 4, 7, and 10. Over 30% of the 4th graders met the individual student standard for excellence in mathematics, with 8% of 7th graders and only 4% of 10th graders meeting the standard. Five-year trend…

Although it is true that today's education needs improvement, schools today are not all bad. The opinions of the following five experts, whose views are worth hearing are introduced: (1) Thomas Hopkins; (2) Ralph Tyler; (3) E. F. Lindquist; (4) Walter Cook; and (5) Harold Benjamin. (SLD)

Accuracy in the scoring of writing is critical if standardized tasks are to be used in a national assessment scheme. Three approaches to establishing accuracy (i.e., consensus, consistency, and measurement) exist and commonly large-scale assessment programs of primary school writing demonstrate adjacent agreement consensus rates of between 80% and…

This paper offers facts and figures on Utah's state of education for 2005. This paper contains the following: (1) Education Contacts; (2) Utah State Board of Education members; (3) Value of Weighted Pupil Unit (WPU) for the 2004-05 school year; (4) Per Pupil Spending in Perspective (2002); (5) Public School Enrollment per district (October…

In March 1992 the Arizona State Department of Education and educators across the state conducted a pilot study of 67 performance assessments developed for the Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP). This report describes various aspects of the reliability and validity of the 67 assessments (primarily constructed response) developed by The…

The National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching is working with the New York State Education Department to develop an assessment system that addresses both instructional and accountability concerns. The new system is intended to move the state to a system of performance assessments used in the service of ongoing teaching and…

This "Profile" offers a snapshot of state assessment systems by describing some of their fundamental characteristics. Its focus is on what individual states are doing in terms of developing their own standards and assessments and how they report these results. Two pages of information are presented for each state (but not for the…

The development and use of Oregon's Proficiency-Based Admission Standards System (PASS) are described and results of some evaluations of the PASS system are presented. PASS is to be used for college entry in Oregon and is designed to promote the seamlessness of high school and college education by guaranteeing that students would have the…

A description and analysis of the America 2000 educational strategy emphasizes the questions of what children and youths deserve and need in terms of education, and what the process of taking children and youth seriously involves in practice for teachers, administrators, parents, and others. After stressing that America 2000 is a national, rather…