Materials are presented for conducting a workshop on increasing participants' awareness of how to integrate assessment options into a comprehensive plan. A typology for assessment options is provided that includes: (1) paper-and-pencil tests; (2) performance assessments; and (3) personal communications options. Assessment options are discussed in…

Four papers describe a study of the use of holistic writing assessment procedures in a pretest and posttest manner to determine improvement of 10th graders' writing skills. "Problem and Context" (James E. McLean) briefly describes the project and introduces the other three papers. "Holistic Scoring Procedures for Scoring Writing…

An overview is provided of the "Authentic Assessment for Multiple Users" project funded by the National Science Foundation to determine whether portfolio assessment can be structured to permit meaningful aggregation for multiple hierarchical users. The research focus was in the context of science and mathematics instruction in grades…

Intended to help students from language-minority backgrounds develop literacy in English, this book identifies and answers the major questions surrounding reading instruction for English as a second language (ESL) students. Specifically, the book reviews and synthesizes what is known about background issues related to the education of ESL…

Education is presently undergoing a paradigm shift, with some teachers, parents, and administrators interested in new ways of thinking about teaching and learning, while others are skeptical or even resistant to new ideas in education. The Whole Language movement, and holistic education in general, is in danger of being tossed aside like the "New…

Initial efforts to validate a developmentally appropriate assessment system for use with children aged 3 to 7 years are described. The Project Construct Assessment System is part of a comprehensive framework for curriculum and assessment that is predicated on the theory that children construct their own knowledge. It features a variety of…

The California Assessment Collaborative (CAC) was designed as a three-year effort to identify, validate, and disseminate alternatives to standardized testing throughout the state. This report highlights the results from the first year and comments on the work of 22 diverse pilot projects that serve as examples of site-based development of…

This book supports constructive discussion about assessment and provides concrete directions for change. The 10 chapters outline many of the difficulties associated with current standardized testing. While most educators refer to the new non-standardized test efforts as alternative assessments, this type of assessment is increasingly being called…

Several leaders in education have concluded that the United States should have some form of national achievement testing. Such tests are proposed as part of the "America 2000" education strategy. Believing that the experience of other countries will be useful to educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens, the National Endowment for…

New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) established a Task Force on Student Assessment in the spring of 1990, which was designed to: review available information on testing principles and practices; make recommendations for reform of testing; and communicate its findings to NYSUT members. Ten recommendations were made, centering on the necessity…

Science process skills are described as a set of broadly transferable abilities, appropriate to all of the science disciplines and reflective of the true behavior of scientists. While science process skills have gained wide acceptance as an integral part of the science curricula, the development of valid and reliable instruments to assess those…

Information was gathered to determine the extent to which more authentic education assessments, including whole language assessments, are being implemented, and to identify which organizations conduct authentic education assessments. Materials used by the surveyed organizations were collected and catalogued into a compendium of authentic…

As a precursor to making recommendations for more effective assessment methods for teacher certification, an examination is made of the professions of law and medicine. Specifically, the examination covers the relationship between training programs and the methods employed for evaluating prospective lawyers and doctors to ensure that they have the…

California has provided other states with an example of how not to assess student writing and has initiated a new direction in the statewide assessment of student writing achievement, a direction designed to influence writing instruction positively. Before 1987, the California Assessment Program (CAP) limited English skills assessment to multiple…

Using the Internet to administer homework allows us to determine if students change their homework habits during a semester and if this change results in an improvement in grades.