Reviews problems with the current movement to use national standards and performance assessment to reform education and the impact of the standards on students with disabilities. The characteristics of standards, as they are currently being employed, are discussed, along with issues related to measurement, reliability, and validity. (Author/CR)

This booklet examines national and state educational reform in the 1990s, noting the ways in which performance assessment is being presented as a mechanism of reform. Three reform initiatives are examined: national education goals, standards, and reform legislation. In conjunction with these reform movements, new methods of assessment are being…

The College Outcome Measures Program (COMP) and its role in an era when standardized testing is being questioned and authentic assessment is championed are discussed. Authentic assessment should not mean discarding measurement expertise and existing technology. It is an approach to measuring the quality and level of performance that uses real…