This study analyzes examination questions and papers in 12 academic departments and seven faculties at a Kenyan (Africa) state university between the 1989-1990 and the 1994-1995 academic years, charging that the findings reveal impoverished university training. The paper argues that the emphasis in most examinations is on the lower mental skills,…

What are ways to encourage minority students and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds to take and succeed in AP classes? Advanced Placement courses and their final national standardized exams began in 1954 to help students, mostly white males, get through college more quickly so that they would have more time in the work force. 50 years later,…

This document is the seventh in a series of reports designed to provide: (1) consistent, reliable indicators to allow analysis of trends for each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico over time; (2) high data quality for comparability from state to state; and (3) accessible indicator formats for use by a variety of audiences. The report…

This report describes how results from the Austin Independent School District (AISD) Student Climate Survey are related to academic achievement in AISD.

Providing Hispanic elementary students with a great variety of books in Spanish and 60 minutes a week of free reading time resulted in significantly higher Spanish reading performance with no loss of English reading proficiency and significant improvement of reading attidues, compared with control groups. (MH)

Differentiating and ranking (D/R) mechanisms (norm-referenced testing, grouping, competition, busing differences) within the school isolate the culturally foreign and define them as inferior to the culturally dominant. The D/R factors constitute a vehicle by which the school commits symbolic violence. (Author/CM)

An historical and sociological explanation is presented for the occurrence of overrepresentation of racial minorities in special education classes for mentally retarded school children discovered in the California public schools. (Author/MH)

Compared success at Virginia Commonwealth University pharmacy school of native English-speakers and of students with other first languages, by assessing admissions data/test scores, pharmacy school science and math grades, English skills, and pharmacy grade point average (GPA). Found that first language was not predictive of either number of…

The construct validities of the Self Description Questionnaire I, the Perceived Social Competence Scale, and the Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control were assessed, using 508 seventh through ninth graders in Sydney (Australia). Factor analysis, multitrait-multimethod analyses, and patterns of correlations with additional…

The motivation behind the curriculum design and evaluation procedures of the East Asian Summer Language Institute's Chinese school are discussed. Two instructional methods, learning model instruction and acquisition model instruction, are described. (23 references) (CB)

Questions what assessment strategies are appropriate for the National Standards and how they might differ from more traditional assessments. Provides guidelines for standards-based assessments and several sets of sample questions. Suggests the adoption of performance assessment strategies for material requiring evaluative thinking. (MJP)

Explores issues on instruction and evaluation of students who are nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English in institutions employing Writing across the Curriculum programs. The authors examine faculty expectations of NNS writing and NNS performance on Writing Proficiency Exams and conclude that these students are held to a double standard. (15…

This case study argues that teachers are ill-prepared to give English-as-a-Second-Language students the instruction they need for integration into mainstream classrooms, and advocates ongoing teacher study groups as a replacement for traditional one-shot workshops. (Contains 21 references.) (LR)

Asserts that two forgotten facts in educational reform are that the student is the primary client of all assessment and that testing should be designed to improve performance, not just monitor it. Includes sample portfolio performance tasks on a variety of social studies topics. (CFR)

Presents 10 major issues parents need to address effectively in order to advocate for their children's education (safety, discipline, practices and policies, grading, labels, bias, curriculum and schedules, standardized tests, homework, and subject anxiety). The article suggests appropriate questions to ask the schools. (SM)