In order to address concerns about the intellectual quality of students' work under various "active learning" formats appearing in education reform efforts, this study developed a model of authentic pedagogy and assessed its presence in 23 restructured schools. The proposed authentic pedagogy is consistent with an active learning perspective and…

The research reported in this paper was conducted to gain information to guide the selection of standard setting procedures for use with polytomous items to set achievement levels on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments in U.S. History and geography. Standard-setting procedures were evaluated to determine the relative…

Authentic evaluation of educational achievement directly measures actual performance in the subject area. Standardized multiple-choice tests, on the other hand, measure test-taking skills directly, and everything else indirectly or not at all. Also called performance assessment, appropriate assessment, alternative assessment, or direct assessment,…

The ways in which data on performance on public examinations could be used as educational performance indicators were studied, focusing on the standard tables developed for the Scottish Office Education Department (SOED). These tables are available for every secondary school in Scotland. Further refinements to follow the planned release of the…

The Clark County (Nevada) School District introduced performance assessments into its assessment program for grades one through six as part of an effort to bring the assessment program in line with the revised curriculum. To study the effectiveness of these assessments, reading performance assessment results for grades three through five were…

This packet contains four separate documents designed to help elementary schools develop their own action plans for implementing the KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act) Primary Program, a developmentally appropriate program for young children supported by the Kentucky Department of Education. Fully implemented primary programs are to include the…

Reflecting an integrated, constructivist approach to teaching, this book presents the content of the language arts curriculum and effective teaching strategies for teaching this content so that elementary and middle-school teachers can help students develop communicative competence. This third edition emphasizes the multicultural classroom,…

This booklet examines national and state educational reform in the 1990s, noting the ways in which performance assessment is being presented as a mechanism of reform. Three reform initiatives are examined: national education goals, standards, and reform legislation. In conjunction with these reform movements, new methods of assessment are being…

This article reports on a study of a new performance-based test mandate in the state of Arizona. The measurement-driven reform provided an opportunity to examine the interplay of policy and practice, specifically the use of testing to effect educational change. Attempts to reform schools through mandating assessments are categorized as behaviorist…

American Indian students generally have not done well on traditional standardized tests. Such tests have been criticized because their ability to predict academic success is questionable, and they correlate with socioeconomic class, reward superficial learning, encourage classroom practices that fail to provide high-quality education, and are…

The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) enhances collaboration among states rethinking teacher assessment for initial licensing and for preparation and induction into teaching. Towson University's Elementary Education Department adopted INTASC's standards for its teacher education program. In a pilot program involving…

The EXCELS! Project of the Anchorage School District (Alaska) was initiated in 1994 through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to demonstrate the development of a kindergarten through sixth grade instructional program reflecting state and national standards in History, Civics, Geography, and English. More than 1,200 Anchorage teachers…

The use of standardized tests within the Chicago (Illinois) Public School System and elsewhere is discussed in the context of school reform efforts. Standardized tests have been criticized as: being too general to assess all valued outcomes; being too general to fit with local curricula; and directing instruction only to test objectives. Recent…

This report describes Kentucky's Primary School Program, which was developed after the signing of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990. An overview of the report explains the philosophy of the program and lists its critical attributes. These are: (1) developmentally appropriate practices; (2) multi-age classrooms; (3) continuous progress; (4)…

The Maryland School Performance Program released six sample tasks to illustrate the types of assessment tasks that would appear on the 1992 Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP). Students' responses to these tasks are open-ended; that is, students generate their own responses. A wide range of responses to each task is acceptable.…