The Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) measures reading, mathematics, and writing skills through multiple-choice test items and a writing test essay. It is administered, by law, to students entering Texas public institutions of higher education before they complete 9 semester hours. Passing all sections indicates a general readiness to perform…

In testing, educators have two competing intentions. They want to be fair in allowing students to demonstrate what they know without creating testing conventions and formats that let students pretend to know. Teaching-the-test literature shows that test scores can be inflated, meaning that they can go up without a generalized increase in…

The psychometric properties of the testing tools of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), the state standardized testing program, are examined. Reliability studies have indicated that the scores from the MEAP, ranging from 0.654 to 0.949, are generally acceptable. The State Department of Education offered supporting evidence for the…

This book shows the advantages of Rasch measurement (G. Rasch) for school district testing programs. The results of Rasch methods are contrasted with conventional statistics for assessing student responses to basic skills testing. Chapter 1 shows how the Rasch probability-based method produces measures that are more useful for students, parents,…

This paper describes New Jersey's High School Proficiency Test (HPST) in reading, one of three tests given to all 11th graders as a state graduation requirement. Each reading passage represents one of four test types (narrative, informational, persuasive/argumentative, and workplace). Each passage is followed by multiple-choice items and at least…

This report presents preliminary results from four sets of tests that are part of the North Carolina state testing program. The Grade 3 Pretest is a multiple choice reading and mathematics test administered to students at the beginning of third grade. This pretest was administered to more than 102,000 students in the 1999-2000 school year, and…

Standards-based reform activity dominated K-12 education during the 1990s, reflecting a consensus that improving learning requires state-level curricular standards and examinations. Opponents argue state-imposed standards and tests overly burden districts, degrade teaching and learning, suffer from numerous technical problems, and have failed to…

For several decades, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) held the preeminent role in measuring student and school performance in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Illinois. In the context of the No Child Left Behind act and new calls for accountability, the CPS has decided to include results from the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) in…

A series of tables presents information about trends in educational data from West Virginia from 1993-94 through 1997-98. Data are organized into the following categories: (1) Advanced Placement Test information; (2) American College Testing scores; (3) attendance rate; (4) average class size; (5) classrooms with split grades; (6) dropout rate;…

This study addresses the placement of students in remedial education among community colleges in the United States. Of specific interest is the appropriate entry-level placement of students in math courses. Citing that traditional standardized placement tests are overly broad and thus of questionable value for placing community college students in…

This document reports on state indicators for the quality of science and mathematics education in public schools and the trends in science and mathematics education as of 1999-2000, a system developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CSSO) in cooperation with the state departments of education, federal agencies, and professional…

In this answer booklet, students record their answers to the practice test items for the Ohio Proficiency Tests for grade 6. The practice tests represent the subject tests for writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship, and science. The writing tests allow space for essays based on writing prompts. The items from the other tests are in…

This booklet contains the practice tests for the fourth-grade Ohio Proficiency Tests. The work students do on these tests helps the teacher know how well the student understands the subjects of reading, writing, mathematics, citizenship, and science. The writing test consists of two writing tasks. The other tests are made up of multiple choice,…

In this study we test the performance of some nonexperimental estimators of impacts applied to an educational intervention--reduction in class size--where achievement test scores were the outcome. We compare the nonexperimental estimates of the impacts to "true impact" estimates provided by a random-assignment design used to assess the…

This report provides a partial description of a whole school change project that has taken place from 1996-2000 at Hartsfield Elementary School in Tallahassee, Florida. The primary focus of the report is on reading instruction and achievement. This is a partial report in that many variables contributed to the success of the reading program, and…