Standardized assessment in school systems has been the center of debate for decades. Although the voices of opponents of standardized tests have dominated the public forum, only a handful of scholars and practitioners have argued in defense of standardized tests. This article provides a critical synthesis of the controversial issues on…

A recent report of mathematics results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) highlighted this "major finding": "Public- school students scored lower on average than non-public-school students at both grades 4 and 8." Of course, this finding is nothing new. Indeed, it is part of the common wisdom in the…

School districts in the U.S. increasingly rely on standardized testing to documentstudent achievement in mathematics, reading, science, and English. Educators and policy-makers have engaged in heated debates as to the effects of such standardized testing practices on actual student achievement. In studying these issues, it is important to examine…

This paper argues the need for broader criteria than are customarily used, for measuring pupil achievement, school effectiveness and impact on educational policy in the plural and highly unequal societies of Mexico and Central America. We proceed by first presenting the context of highly centralized mainstream educational provision, concentrated…

Based on ecological theory, this study examined how four components of children's home and child-care literacy environments, and the connections between these environments, were associated with preschool-age children's literacy and language development. Interview and standardized assessment data were collected from 85 preschool-age children, their…

Background: There has been no previous incidence survey of children referred to a speech and language therapy service in the UK. Previous studies of prevalence of specific communication difficulties provide contradictory data from which it is difficult to plan speech and language therapy service provision. Reliable data are needed concerning the…

Age differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the relationships of each to academic outcomes were examined in an ethnically diverse sample of 797 3rd-grade through 8th-grade children. Using independent measures, the authors found intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to be only moderately correlated, suggesting that they may be largely…

This article examines a value-added model to rate schools, taking into account varying characteristics of students entering the schools, including poverty, race, mobility, and stability. The model uses regression to separate the influence of demographics that are outside the school's control from those under school control. This value-added model…

The officially reported impressive rises in standards in mathematics and English in primary schools since 1995 are challenged. The article looks at the increases from four different perspectives. First, the general pattern of change is considered. Secondly, the statutory test data are compared with the results from several different studies. These…

Adopting a sociocultural theoretical framework and based on ethnographic data from two primary schools, this article seeks to answer the question: what meanings about inclusion and exclusion are encoded in school and classroom practices? It documents the (inclusionary and) exclusionary pedagogic processes that influence learning and children's…

This article presents the author's comments on ""Lake Woebegone," Twenty Years Later" by J. J. Cannell, MD. J. J. Cannell's article on the so-called "Lake Woebegone" effect for K-12 educational testing systems is mostly an historical account of technical issues and policy considerations that led in part to development…

There is so much quarrelling surrounding education today it seems people have lost sense of what needs arguing about, where there is a need for more research and where there are grounds for general agreement. Grounds now exist for shared agreement on matters of educational purpose. Moreover, there has in fact been much agreement on such matters…

Verbal and nonverbal predictors of spelling performance in Grades 1-12 were investigated using the national norming data from a standardized spelling test. Verbal variables included number of letters, phonemes, syllables, digraphs, blends, silent markers, r-controlled vowels, and the proportion of grapheme-phoneme correspondence. The nonverbal…

Thirty years ago, Peter Elbow wrote "Writing without Teachers" and ushered in the process, heuristic approach to language pedagogy. Most distinctive about Elbow's book--and the plethora of others that would follow--was the invitation to allow writing to evolve, to develop, and to grow as a living organism. Suddenly, teachers were supplanting…

Standardized testing is an assessment strategy that evaluates all students and all schools on the same basic skills and, therefore, might reasonably indicate which schools are high performers and which are not. Standardized testing is not a new strategy for providing this proof. The United States has produced reams of articles criticizing…