This amicus curiae was filed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the case of the United States of America and North Carolina Association of Educators v. North Carolina, which involved the validity of North Carolina's use of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE). The NTE, a battery of achievement tests designed to measure the academic…

The fairness of testing practices for selection or promotion of members of different racial and ethnic groups has been questioned. In this study, a search was made of occupations in the Federal Government to find those in various agencies with sufficient ethnic group representation for acceptable sample size, and for which dependable and objective…

The approach characterizing this study of bias in tests of educational achievement is stated to be reflective and philosophical rather than experimental and statistical. Its concern is with operationally definable areas of learning and indicators of achievement rather than with the hypothetical latent traits that are presumed by some to influence…

The controversial and complex issues regarding the effects of educational and psychological testing on the education of minority group children in America are discussed. Although the focus is primarily on black students, the issues discussed are equally valid for all minority populations in the American public schools. The articles in the book…

A pilot study was conducted to ascertain if creative abilities measures could be adapted to the upper elementary school level and maintain their factorial validity. The factorial validities of seven measures of productive thinking abilities at the upper elementary school level were tested across grade levels and different socio-economic…

Statistical, legal and moral problems involved in following the EEOC guidelines are described. The guidelines require separate data for minority and non-minority groups with differential cut off scores for aptitude tests which have a racial bias. Problems reviewed include: identification of racial bias in tests is difficult; giving one race an…

A number of methods have been used to identify potentially biased items within a test. These methods examine one item at a time and do not deal with the complex interrelationships among items or among items and the potentially biasing elements. The use of multivariate procedures to assess whether or not items are biased and to obtain clues about…

Reviews the major issues involved in testing Black children and youth. Argues that testing must be demystified by improving professional training, and that testing must be viewed as only one part of the assessment of achievement and ability. Concludes that more Black professionals must be included in the process of test development and…

As part of a discussion of the complexities of evaluating bilingual education, this paper discusses critical questions related to equitable education. A first concern is the development of standards. Children must be given equal opportunities to learn, but the development of standards and new assessments alone will not ensure that inequities will…

The standards-based reform movement has the potential to improve American Indian education. The philosophy underlying the language arts standards that promotes the active use of authentic language and the teaching of skills in context, and the constructivist theory of learning reflected in the mathematics and science standards are both consistent…

Laboratory experiments by Steele and Aronson (1995) found that African-American subjects' performance on difficult verbal items, described as a verbal problem-solving task, was adversely affected when they were asked about their ethnicity just before working on the items. These results were attributed to stereotype threat. Asking about ethnicity…

Performance of high-scoring males and females on the mathematics section of three forms of the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT-M) was examined to determine how item content, solution strategy, and speededness differentially affect performance. The mathematical and verbal sections of the SAT were also compared for similarities in the…

The question of bias in the way Higher School Certificate (HSC) scores relate to university results is examined. Analyses showed that HSC scores were biased against state school students. State school students were found to perform better at university than do independent school students having the same HSC scores. (Author/MLW)

An overview of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, NJ is presented. A New York State legislature truth-in-testing bill now requires: reporting of student scores and access to answer sheets, publishing of questions used, reporting on test research, and assurances of confidentiality. Implications for ETS are discussed. (MLW)

The Social Self-Esteem (SSE) measure, related personality constructs, and socioeconomic variables were examined to determine what SSE actually assesses. SSE was found to measure aspects of males' status ideals. Results suggested that the measure is not useful with females. (MH)