This paper provides information about Oregon State Assessment System. Its purpose is to assess proficiency in the Essential Skills for the purpose of earning a regular or modified high school diploma. Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is also used for federal accountability purposes under No Child Left Behind. [For the main report,…

This research study examined the use of student achievement on reading and math state assessments to predict success on the science state assessment. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to test the prediction for all students in grades 5 and 8 in a mid-Atlantic state. The prediction model developed from the analysis explored the combined…

Council for American Private Education (CAPE) is a coalition of national associations serving private schools K-12. "Outlook" is published monthly by CAPE. This issue contains the following articles: (1) NAEP Math Results Raise Question: Are Reforms Working?; (2) CAPE Calls for Equity in Discretionary Grant Programs; (3) "Let Me…

This study focused on examining the effect of two alternative school types on student success in Mississippi. To determine alternative school type, alternative program directors self-reported program design, and schools were divided into two groups. Type I schools were defined as "punitive-based" programs in which students receive…

We developed alternate forms of a math test for use in both screening students at risk of failure and monitoring their progress over time. In this technical report, we present results of the screener, used in the fall of 2009. The 48-item test was aligned to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Curriculum Focal Point Standards…

This Carsey brief reveals that students in rural areas and small towns have less access to higher-level mathematics courses than students in urban settings, which results in serious educational consequences, including lower scores on assessment tests and fewer qualified students entering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) job…

This paper reports on a project which investigates the impact of systemic environmental education (EE) programs on student achievement on EE-based integrated tests and standardized tests in math, language arts, and listening. Systemic environmental education programs are defined by curriculum designed to align and integrate subjects around real…

This study investigated the comparative efficiency of Web-based instruction (WBI) and traditional teaching methods on preservice teachers' fraction knowledge. Students' knowledge of fractions was measured using a Fraction Knowledge Test. The test consisted of 32 items and was administered as pre- and posttests to a total of 42 preservice teachers…

Learning strategies and affective factors could have a profound impact on student standardized mathematics performance. This study investigated gender differences in affective factors, learning strategies, and preferred learning situations, and how these variables affect math achievement of 15 year olds in the United States and Hong Kong on the…

An approach is presented that can predict internal consistency of cognitively complex assessments on two dimensions, those of adding tasks with similar or different solution strategies and adding test takers with different solution strategies. Data from the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessment are used to…

Many researchers and the International Test Commission's (Hambleton, 2005) caution against treating scores from different language versions of a test as equivalent, without conducting empirical research to verify such equivalence. In this study, we evaluated the equivalence of English and Malay versions of a 9th-grade math test administered in…

The percentage of eighth graders on target to be ready for college-level work by the time they graduate from high school is so small that it raises questions not just about the prospect that these students can eventually be ready for college, but also about whether they are even ready for high school. A new longitudinal study by ACT (in press)…

In 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a study of the U.S. Department of Education's (ED)'s efforts to support states in meeting the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (Ashby, 2006). The study found the requirement to include all students, including English language learners (ELLs) in standards and assessment systems, a…

This article reports results derived from the national study of Grade 5 in Vietnamese primary schools in which teachers and pupils took tests in reading and mathematics. The test data were calibrated so that teacher and pupil results could be mapped onto the same continuum. Results showed that the overlapping tests for teachers and pupils were…

This study illustrates how a diagnostic testing model can be used to make detailed comparisons between student populations participating in international assessments. The performance of Turkish students on the TIMSS-R mathematics test was reanalyzed with a diagnostic testing model called the Rule Space Model. First, mathematical and cognitive…