Contends that, although national system of testing is neither efficient nor valid as means of inspiring educational reform, certain principles can lead to effective uses of assessment at local and state levels. Suggests nine guidelines for school district staff, State Department of Education personnel, and policymakers to follow in comprehensively…

Presents an integer programming approach to item bank design that can be used to calculate an optimal blueprint for an item bank in order to support an existing testing program. Demonstrates the approach empirically using an item bank designed for the Law School Admission Test. (SLD)

Registered nurses (n=368) participated in a skills recredentialing program in which competencies were assessed by a knowledge test and performance test under simulated conditions and evaluator ratings in actual patient-care situations. No significant differences in results between the simulated and actual conditions support the validity of the…

Many teachers gaze in wonder at the professional teaching standards to which they are expected to adhere. Such standards too often ask more of teachers than they can possibly deliver. It is especially disconcerting that teaching standards are actually at odds with an educational environment dominated by ill-conceived accountability schemes and…

Two models are presented in this article for estimating the proportion of students who would pass all of three or more content area tests given that none have actually been tested in more than two of the content areas. The first model allows one to estimate the proportion of students who would pass all of three or more content area tests from the…

Securing data on students' academic achievement is typically one of the most important and costly aspects of conducting education experiments. As state assessment programs have become practically universal and more uniform in terms of grades and subjects tested, the relative appeal of using state tests as a source of study outcome measures has…

This article is based on the perceptions of California State University administrators and provides a comparative study of the challenges and benefits resulting from the implementation of the teaching performance assessment requirement of SB 2042 standards 19-21 on the California State University (CSU) campuses. With 23 campuses and almost 450,000…

This article examines data from nine statewide administrations of the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Assessment (ICLA) over three-years. The ICLA measures pre-service teachers' knowledge of research-based content and pedagogy related to reading instruction and assessment. The purpose of this article was first to examine pre-service candidates'…

Many approaches to standard-setting use item calibration and student score estimation results to structure panelists' tasks. However, this requires collecting standard-setting judgments after the item analysis results are available. The Scoring Guide Alignment approach collects standard-setting judgments during the scoring sessions from teachers…

This report is the first in a series of reports describing results from the Center on Education Policy's (CEP's) third annual analysis of state testing data. The report provides an update on student performance at the proficient level of achievement, and for the first time, includes data about student performance at the advanced and basic levels.…

Many in the research and policy worlds have taken for granted the existence of a phenomenon known as the "plateau effect," wherein test scores rise in the early years of a test-based accountability system and then level off. Drawing from our database of reading and math test results from all 50 states going back as far as 1999, the…

The "2007 GED[R] Testing Program Statistical Report" is the 50th annual report in the program's 66-year history of providing a second opportunity for adults without a high school diploma to earn their jurisdiction's GED credential, and, as a result, advance their educational, personal, and professional aspirations. Section I, "Who…

The second national sample assessment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy at Year 6 and Year 10 will occur in 2008. The assessment happens every three years and the first occurred in 2005. This document provides information about the ICT literacy assessment including: (1) Education Ministers' decisions regarding ICT; (2) the…

The discussion here covers five articles that are linked in the sense that they all treat population invariance. This discussion of population invariance is a somewhat broader treatment of the subject than simply a discussion of these five articles. In particular, occasional reference is made to publications other than those in this issue. The…

Maryland's 24 school systems have made great strides in improving public education from pre-kindergarten through high school to ensure children are getting a high-quality education. This guide provides information and online links, including: (1) Maryland's state testing and reporting processes; (2) Programs available to support student…