This booklet by a committee appointed to assess the teaching implications of the Reading and Writing tests of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test (NJCBSPT) is intended to provide ways of helping teachers assist students to improve their skills in reading and writing by, in part, pinpointing the major weaknesses of students taking…

The drug-testing plans covering 11 of the 12 civilian federal cabinet-level agencies met the requirements of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines, and the guidelines themselves were found to contain the elements required by Public Law 100-71. However, the drug-testing plans differ, so employees may find different circumstances…

The issue of drug testing is the focus of this ERIC Digest. Several aspects of drug testing discussed in question-and-answer format: (1) What is the current status of drug use in the schools? (2) What legal questions arise when schools consider drug testing? (3) How might drug testing be applied in a fair, economical, and legally safe manner? (4)…

A study of selected formal examination syllabi used in Great Britain revealed that the examining boards for the Certificate in Secondary Education and the General Certificate of Education have incorporated little material that would give students an understanding of international issues. Syllabi for the International Bacalaureate do contain more…

A response is given to the recommendation of the Georgia Governor's Education Review Commission that the grade point average (GPA) requirements for admission to undergraduate teacher education programs in Georgia be raised from the present 2.5 to 2.7. Brief summaries are presented of five studies dealing with the relationship of GPA for admission…

The necessity of controlling the order in which trained essay raters for a statewide writing assessment program receive student essays was studied. The underlying theoretical question concerns possible rater bias caused by raters reading long strings of essays of homogeneous quality; this problem is usually referred to as context effect or…

This package consists of an information booklet for job candidates preparing to take California's Probation Officer Examination and a user's manual intended for those who will administer the examination. The candidate information booklet provides background information about the development and validation of the Probation Officer Examination,…

In 1986, a study of remedial programs in Texas community colleges was conducted to determine the range of current practices and to assess the outcomes achieved. Each campus was sent a detailed self-study guide focusing on policies and practices related to assessment and placement, descriptive and evaluative information, policies related to course…

One of a series of studies examining Louisiana's compensatory education program, this study investigated four assumptions upon which a skill-specific intervention program was based. Framed as questions, these assumptions are: (1) Is retention effective for students who do not know basic content for a given grade level? (2) When is retention most…

The study reported in this paper examined whether a disproportionate number of boys and girls in a given grade level at various schools might have an inequitable effect on the mean achievement test scores of those schools. The student population of the Palm Beach County Schools, Florida, reflecting a cross-section of socio-economic backgrounds,…

Approximately 60,000 Delaware public school students in grades 1 through 8 and in grade 11 were administered a battery of achievement tests as part of the state-funded Delaware Educational Assessment Program (DEAP) in 1986. This was the second administration of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS), in reading, language arts, and…

Compliance with South Carolina's Basic Skills Assessment Program (BSAP), involving test administration and instructional monitoring, was on schedule for the 1983-84 school year. Results of readiness tests given to over 50,000 first graders showed 72.6% "ready" to begin formal instruction. Teachers were given materials for areas in which…

This report covers the 1986-87 testing year in which eight colleges or schools at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin participated in the credit-by-examination program. Test results in 18 subject areas are reported. The summary section includes a discussion of the overall impact of credit-by-examination on eight participating schools or…

Prior to the Virginian Standards of Learning Program most curriculum guidance was provided by the Board of Education through course requirement in-service sessions and through legislative action on mandated topics. The Standards of Learning Program gave Virginia teachers primary responsibility for establishing minimum competencies and assessment…

High and low level questions as determined by a panel of evaluators were combined with corrective feedback and attribute isolation feedback to form four versions of a computer-based science lesson. The sample consisted of 154 high school chemistry students in a suburban high school. The primary hypothesis was that students who received high level…