The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides greater flexibility in state accountability systems than did previous federal legislation. In response, many states continue to refine their accountability systems to include college readiness tests, including college admissions and placement exams. This paper summarizes perspectives of K-12…

On the surface, this chapter concerns the evolution of educational assessment from a paper-based technology to an electronic one. On a deeper level, that evolution is more substantive. In the first section of this chapter, those stages are briefly described and used to place the new generation of assessments being created by the two comprehensive…

Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) computer adaptive interim assessments serve many purposes, from informing instruction to identifying students for intervention to projecting proficiency on state accountability assessments. To make sure its flagship product does the latter, Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) routinely conducts studies…

Literacy educators and researchers have long recognized the importance of increasing students' writing proficiency across age and grade levels. With the release of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a new and greater emphasis is being placed on writing in the K-12 curriculum. Educators, as well as the authors of the CCSS, agree that…

On August 7th, 2013, the New York State Education Commissioner, John King, announced the initial results of the state's new assessment, which was designed to measure college and career readiness relative to the Common Core Learning Standards. Commissioner King noted that the proficiency rates on these assessments were significantly lower than…

The current era of common curriculum standards, increased accountability, and rapid expansion of technology within a complex and highly charged political context has influenced changes in assessment practices in mathematics classrooms. This research commentary situates high-stakes assessments in a historical context, discusses recent advances in…

Assessment has long been at the center of education policy debates, and for good reason. The goal of schooling is to maximize student learning, and assessments provide a picture of what students know and are able to do. Assessments also have a strong influence on what goes on in classrooms. The United States is now poised to make the most dramatic…

In U.S. schools, students must pass statewide competency tests to graduate from high school. In this article, the authors summarize the development and testing of a program implemented to improve the skills of students failing to "make the grade" on these high-stakes tests. District personnel randomly assigned twenty-eight students who…

Minnesota Statute 120B.365 established an Assessment Advisory Committee to advise the commissioner on statewide assessment issues. The committee may consist of up to 11 members. The Committee will make recommendations to the commissioner and/or the legislature about issues involving statewide assessment. This report briefly provides a background…

A general evaluation design was developed to examine the effectiveness of a computer-based, multimedia simulation test on California smog check mechanics. The simulation test operated on an Apple Macintosh IIci, with a single touchscreen color monitor controlling a videodisc player; it had three parts: introduction-tutorial-help, data, and test.…