The Nebraska Assessment Battery of Essential Learning Skills (N-ABELS) is a goal-oriented instrument with an evaluation component providing a basis for determining acquisition of twelve skills defined as learning goals. Each goal is stated in terms of an acceptable performance standard which clearly describes what the student must do. The skills…

This chapter of "The Best of the Best of ERIC," Volume 2, contains 18 summaries of documents and journals on competency-based education, all of which are indexed in either "Resources in Education" or "Current Index to Journals in Education." The materials included deal with various aspects of the topic, such as…

This guide provides instructors of business computer programming with a curriculum correlated directly to the office education essential elements mandated by the Texas Education Agency. Introductory materials include a scope and sequence and lists of suggested textbooks, resource books, software, audiovisuals, and magazines. Eleven units are…

This catalogue of student competencies, gleaned from 10,000 competency statements developed by secondary school districts, is designed to allow flexibility at the local level. Districts are free to adopt or modify this set of graduation competencies by following a six-step process: organize, orient a task force, identify priority competency…

This supplement to the California Business Education Program Guide for Office and Distributive Occupations is designed to assist office education teachers of secondary, postsecondary, and adult students to update their business education curricula in light of new technology and increasing demand for skilled office workers. Focusing on banking and…

This paper describes Oregon's experiences with state performance requirements. It explains that these requirements cover three areas: budgeting on a program basis, providing a schooling environment designed to meet student needs through a systematic management process, and setting learning performance standards for students, including graduation…

Minimal competency testing is the most recent evolution of the accountability movement and of the competency based education movement. It focuses on the basic academic skills of reading, writing, and arithemtic. It presumes the state will set educational objectives, and that the local school district will conduct its program so that the objectives…

For more than 20 years, the benefits of international mobility for students have been taken for granted. Now, policy makers and educators have started to realize that internationalization and globalization do not magically happen by sending ever higher numbers of students abroad. The quality of international mobility has taken center stage of the…

One of a series in reading, writing, and mathematics intended to acquaint teachers with the skills tested in each content area on the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test, this booklet on writing presents material that can be used in lesson planning, skills review, and practice testing. Following a report of the writing committee convened to…

The instructional delivery system of traditional school practice consists of fixed time, single opportunities for learning a vague-referenced, variable, and private curriculum. While a minimum competency testing program ensures that academic standards are criterion-referenced, fixed, and public, the time allotted for learning may still be fixed.…

The three articles in this journal issue focus on the real meaning of competency in reading and writing. The first article, "Minimums and Optimums," argues against the establishment of minimum competency tests and for an increase in instructional time. "Placement Testing: The Objective Irrelevant," the second article, maintains that the…

Three conference sessions focused on attempts to implement minimum competency testing programs at various educational levels. In each of the sessions particular attention was paid to planning for the development of a minimum competency testing program; the processes of development, initiation, and interpretation of the results; and difficulties…

The concepts of competency can be conceptually separated into two dimensions: minimum competency testing (MCT) and competency based education (CBE). One of the major weaknesses of the MCT movement is the growing reliance on single test scores as indicators of the total capability of students. Minorities do not reject the idea of competence, but…

The logical and psychological bases for setting cutting scores for criterion-referenced tests are examined; they are found to be intrinsically arbitrary and are often examples of misdirected precision and axiomatization. The term, criterion referenced, originally referred to a technique for making test scores meaningful by controlling the test…

This document presents a collection of materials on school performance in Maryland, especially as demonstrated in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) and the Independence Mastery Assessment Program (IMAP) for some special needs students. The MSPAP is a testing program administered to third, fifth, and eighth grade students…