To facilitate the discussion of national education standards, this workbook extracts examples of education standards from eight documents that describe what students should be taught, or what they should know or be able to do in various subjects. These examples illustrate and document some existing standards, and should help policy makers sharpen…

Performance assessment, constructed-response, and authentic assessment are topics of current interest in educational testing and reform. This workbook presents the following articles on educational assessment to highlight work being done in this area: (1) "Aquarium Problem and Teacher Guidelines: New Standards Project" (University of…

Students with high scores (top third) on the essay portion of an Advanced Placement Examination (AP) (College Board) and low scores (bottom third) on the multiple-choice portion of the same examination were compared with students whose performance showed the opposite pattern. Across examinations in different subject areas (history, English, and…

Consisting of four papers, this study examines university entrance examinations in France, Great Britain, and West Germany and compares them to similar tests in the United States on the basis of three subjects: world history, language study, and biology. The first paper, "The Relationship of the Examinations to the Secondary School Age…

The early part of the 21st century sees the United States competing in an increasingly globalized, high-tech economy that highly prizes those individuals with quality mathematics and science educations, and bestows economic and other benefits on the nations and regions in which they live and work. Nations around the world--recognizing the…

Steele and Aronson (1995) found that the performance of African-American subjects on test items portrayed as a problem-solving task, in a laboratory experiment, was adversely affected when they were asked about their ethnicity. This outcome was attributed to "stereotype threat". Performance was disrupted by the subjects' concerns about…

Examines the approach of the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) Program to curricular development and assessment using the framework of D. Massell for agenda setting for content standards. Opportunities and constraints applicable to the current national standards movement are discussed. The AP program clearly meets capacity building and…

As part of a project on assessing deep understanding of subject matter, a study was conducted to assess students' knowledge of history by focusing on essay writing. Reading a provided text was incorporated into the assessment procedure. Ratings from five high school history teachers were compared with those of four English teachers for 85 essays…

Data on public and private secondary schools that offer advanced placement programs--that is, courses for which college credit is awarded--are provided in this survey report. information on school characteristics and the nature of the program offerings (information not included in College Entrance Examination Board publications) was collected by…

The Texas Education Agency's (TEA's) state GEAR UP project--Texans Getting Academically Prepared (TGAP)--has provided interconnected activities supporting early awareness of and preparation for higher education among low-income and minority students, their families, and schools in six South Texas school districts. Over its six years, the state…

Inverness Research studied the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Seminars on Science program for eight years, from its inception in 1998 to 2006. This paper presents teacher survey ratings for "The Ocean System", along with profiles of three teachers who took the course. Course takers report on the annual follow-up surveys that…

Inverness Research studied the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Seminars on Science program for eight years, from its inception in 1998 to 2006. In 2008, Inverness Research conducted additional studies of the AMNH's new online course, "Evolution". This paper presents teacher survey ratings for "Evolution", along with…

In October 1999, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) received a GEAR UP state grant. TEA's project, Texans Getting Academically Prepared (TGAP), was originally a five-year grant. However, additional federal funding extended the project for a sixth year. TGAP begins at the middle-school level to prepare low-income and minority students for higher…

The Texas Education Agency's (TEA's) state GEAR UP project--Texans Getting Academically Prepared (TGAP)--has provided interconnected activities supporting early awareness of and preparation for higher education among low-income and minority students, their families, and schools in six South Texas school districts. Over its six years, the state…

This PowerPoint report summarizes AISD student demographic and performance results at high schools as of the end of the 2007-2008 school year.