The authors examine how a public school culture that has resisted a number of promising reform initiatives could be transformed by a Millennium School model based on four basic principles: a multi-tiered career path for teachers; teaching in teams; performance-based accountability; and ongoing professional development.

Standardized tests are increasingly used to determine students' growth in reading comprehension. In some U.S. school districts, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has led to a focus on multiple-choice questions to better prepare students for these types of tests. Even though such questions can provide some important information, they do not…

The authors examined the accuracy of information elicited from seventy-nine 5- to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact-touching. Four to six weeks later, children's recall for the event was assessed using an interview protocol analogous to those used in forensic investigations with children. Following the…

How common patterns of rater errors may be detected in a large-scale performance assessment setting is discussed. Common rater effects are identified, and a scaling method that can be used to detect them in operational data sets is presented. Simulated data sets are generated to exhibit each of these rater effects. The three continua that depict…

Assessment in the discipline of speech communication is far from a "passing trend." Between 1988 and 1991, assessment activity on college and university campuses moved from a 55% level of involvement to 81%. Following certain steps allows for an approach that needs to be taken to make the transition to departmental assessment a…

This book proposes strategies for improving high schools based on high standards, particularly the idea of the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), and discusses changes necessary to ensure that all students attain mastery. Part 1, "Where We Are and Where We Ought to Be," contains two chapters. In "Just Passing Through: The Life of…

The Assessment Clearinghouse of the Memphis (Tennessee) City Public Schools is a collection of performance-based instructional tasks that have been designed to address specific content standards at specific grade levels. The tasks consist of a complete set of instructional and assessment activities for immediate classroom use. They also provide a…

This compilation of articles from "The Reading Teacher" contrasts old and new approaches to reading assessment and offers methods that teachers can use in the classroom to build better readers. The articles suggest that in order to effectively assess young readers, one must integrate assessment with instruction, which requires new forms of…

The purpose of this paper is to enumerate a series of security steps that might be taken by those researchers or organizations that are contemplating Web-based tests and performance assessments. From a security viewpoint, much of what goes on with Web-based transactions is similar to other general computer activity, but the recommendations here…

This collection consists of six papers, each dealing with some aspects of reliability and performance testing. Each paper has an abstract, and each contains its own references. Papers include: (1) "Using Reliabilities To Make Decisions" (Deborah J. Harris); (2) "Conditional Standard Errors, Reliability, and Decision Consistency…

This study explores how science and scientists were produced and reproduced within the setting of a university biology department. Building upon recent work in anthropology of education and feminist science studies, the study explored the reflexive questions of whether increased women's representation in science changed science practice and…

While the efficacy of performance-based assessment has been fairly well established, the various physiological, theoretical, and practical benefits of process-based forms of performance assessment have not been well explored. This study examined the perceptions and practices of teachers and pre-teachers related to the soundness of process-based…

This Digest describes different types of scoring rubrics and explains why they are useful. Scoring rubrics are descriptive scoring schemes that are developed by teachers or other evaluators to guide the analysis of the products or processes of students' efforts. Scoring rubrics are generally used when a judgment of quality is required, and they…

This Digest provides a process for developing scoring rubrics. The first step is to identify clearly the qualities that need to be displayed in a student's work to demonstrate proficient performance. These qualities will be the top level or levels of scoring criteria for the scoring rubric. Then the decision must be made whether the information…

In 1991, Michael Scriven published "Beyond Formative and Summative Evaluation," a reconsideration of the classic distinction in evaluation roles. Debate about the roles of evaluation continued in the four papers that follow this introduction, all of which were presented at a forum at the 1995 International Evaluation Conference. (SLD)