Focuses on African-American students' math and reading achievement in a Spanish-English two-way immersion program, from grade 1 to grade 4. Shows African-American students perform significantly lower than do majority White students on achievement tests at all grades. There is no significant difference between the two ethnic groups in Spanish…

Cross-section analysis of mean 8th grade NAEP math scores and SAT-I scores found that New York State students (who take Regents exams) were one grade level equivalent ahead than might be expected, given their socioeconomic background, compared to students in other states. Dropout rates were comparable. (Contains 27 references.) (MLH)

Examines student outcomes and criticisms surrounding standardized achievement testing and discusses strategies for employing alternative approaches to assess minority student learning, performance, and persistence in college. Recommends the administration of comprehensive assessment measures that best capture student performance across cognitive…

An expanded version of the method of content evaluation proposed by S. G. Sireci and K. F. Giesinger (1992) was evaluated with respect to a national licensure examination and a nationally standardized social studies achievement test. Two groups of 15 subject-matter experts rated the similarity and content relevance of the items. (SLD)

Discusses ways in which the logic of mandated systems of mass testing, as a means of ensuring the accountability of public schools, results in the loss of local responsibility for student learning, as well as an inevitable orientation of local schools to comply with system directives over personal, professional, and community values. (Contains 55…

Many children read mathematics word problems and directly translate them to arithmetic operations. More sophisticated problem solvers transform word problems into object-based or mental models. Subsequent solutions are often qualitatively different because these models differentially support cognitive processing. Based on a conception of problem…

The authors describe a study aimed at enhancing knowledge about amphibian species. Two classes of 3rd and 4th graders aged 9-11 years participated in the study. In addition, approximately one half of the students participated in an environmental conservation action designated to preserve migrating amphibians. During this action, students…

In this article, the author talks about the dismal results in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, brought about by the inadequacy of funds required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Recently, chief school officers from 14 states, various state legislatures, and superintendents by the bushel have been loud in their…

Maintains that the No Child Left Behind initiative is a morally neutral force that can be used to ensure that all students learn to their fullest capacities or to reinforce educational inequalities by limiting the curriculum of some students. Expresses fear that middle school curricula in failing schools will be limited to getting students ready…

As testing becomes more prevalent as a policy tool in the Anglo-Saxon world, debates continue as to whether it supports central reforms of instruction or leads to a kind of 'teaching to the test' that invalidates results and undermines more challenging instruction. This paper reports on a three-year study of mathematics testing of nine-year-olds…

The authors examined developmental and individual differences in pure numerical estimation, the type of estimation that depends solely on knowledge of numbers. Children between kindergarten and 4th grade were asked to solve 4 types of numerical estimation problems: computational, numerosity, measurement, and number line. In Experiment 1,…

The premise of a great deal of current research guiding policy development has been that accommodations are the catalyst for student performance differences. Rather than accepting this premise, two studies were conducted to investigate the influence of extended time and content knowledge on the performance of ninth-grade students who took a…

For the past three decades, much attention has been focused on developing diversity programs designed to improve the academic success of underrepresented minorities, primarily in mathematics, science, and engineering. However, ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in science majors and careers. Over the last 10 years, the Biology Scholars…

Test-based accountability systems aim to direct the behavior of educators toward the improvement of student achievement. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act codified accountability as the national educational blueprint, requiring schools to increase test scores incrementally so that all students are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Yet,…

This study investigated the orthographic and phonological coding strategies of students with symmetrical and asymmetrical reading and spelling achievement. Based on performance on a standardized achievement test, fourth-and fifth-grade students (N = 50) were classified as having no difficulties with reading and spelling, difficulties with both…