The Inquiry and Research strand of the 2017 ELAR TEKS for sixth through twelfth grade includes vertically aligned standards for teaching students critical media skills by questioning the reliability and credibility of sources, evaluating bias, and recognizing logical fallacies. This article describes how increased media saturation has led to…

Assessing student mathematical knowledge is an important factor in the mathematics learning process because students obtain important feedback to improve their knowledge and learning. Despite the importance of student assessment, several researchers have shown that student grades comprise noncognitive and metacognitive factors and teachers'…

This research is based on the uniqueness of the national tests scores in Colombia where the same students take a standardized test both at the end of high school and at the end of college. We use then the information of the labor market to identify the return to college education once the graduates find a job. The findings suggest that there is…

This quantitative study examined the achievement gap in mathematics through the analysis of standardized test scores from a suburban school district in Saint Louis County. The problem this study addressed is that students of color in Missouri continue to score well below their peers on mathematics assessments (Bohrnstedt et al., 2015; Kotok, 2017;…

Measuring educational opportunity is a topic of interest to policymakers and education stakeholders alike. Standardized assessments of student achievement are commonly used to measure educational opportunity in North Carolina and across the nation. This research brief examines two measures of educational opportunity in North Carolina public school…

School finance formulas vary from state to state, impacting school district educational outcomes. Rural school districts are especially affected due to inherent challenges in producing high student achievement scores. This study examined whether variables including socioeconomic status and per-pupil local tax level impacted student achievement…

This paper furthers the understanding of literacy being developed through this Special Issue by bringing a pluralistic, complex account of literacy into conversation with assessment. The rise of neoliberalism in education--and its related focus on standards, accountability, and efficiency--has seen literacy positioned as the "core…

This study looks at a group of Hispanic English Learners from a region in deep South Texas that is situated along the U.S.-Mexico border, and how their sense of belonging, acculturation, and their perception of the teacher-student relationship impacts academic achievement on the STAAR End-of-Course state assessments for English I and English II.…

Purpose: Guided by the declarative-procedural knowledge framework, the study attempts to identify middle school students' declarative (knowing what) and procedural (knowing how) fitness knowledge and the relationship between the two. Methods: A sample of students (n = 291, age 11-14 years) from 24 middle schools took a grade-relevant standardized…

Background/Context: Opt-out is a national movement based on local efforts as most notably expressed in New York. While studies have addressed opt-out demographics and local impact, fewer studies address the political activism that extends beyond the act of refusing specific tests to changing standardized testing policy. Purpose/Objective/Research…

In the face of a growing population in the world, an increase in the number of large-scale or standardized testing practices in various contexts has been observed not only to measure individuals' achievement and proficiency but also to serve political, social, economic and ideological functions. In Turkey, English language teacher recruitment is…

This brief is organized into four (4) main sections. We first discuss the inadequacy, inefficacy, and bias of standardized, high-stakes assessments. These assessments do not deliver on promises made by proponents and that they, in fact, do long-term harm to teachers and students, with a disproportionate negative impact on communities of color. The…

State leaders are deeply committed to providing information to parents, educators, and the public about student performance to help target resources and supports quickly and effectively. Some state leaders have examined the context in their respective states and determined that taking a different approach to assessment for the spring of 2021 would…

Students' performance on standardized tests is clearly predictive of their later outcomes (Goldhaber & Özek, 2019) but whether the costs of administering tests are justified by the value of the tests for improving students' outcomes is controversial. This controversy fuels heated debates over federal testing requirements, such as those…

When the U.S. Department of Education (ED) signaled that the broad waivers for state assessments it had offered in 2019-20 would not be widely offered in 2021, it sought to balance the need for student learning data to inform pandemic recovery with the very real operational challenges states face in administering tests this year. This policy…