Provides European evidence supporting the notion that high academic standards and knowledge of the importance of education can help average students excel in school. A typical, average 9th- and 10th-grade test is provided to illustrate what average students can achieve under educational systems designed to elicit the best from all. (GR)

Study focused on the problems of curricular misalignment with placement tests used in community colleges. Findings indicate that while pre-test and post-test scores were highly aligned, there was little or no relationship between placement test scores and student performance in class, or between test content and skills emphasized in class. (PGS)

Summarizes issues related to the provision of testing accommodations for examinees with disabling conditions, considering the history of such accommodations, the disabilities typically addressed, legal issues and precedents, and psychometric issues. Also considers social policy questions related to equity and fairness in testing. (SLD)

Describes bipartisan efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; asserts that enforcing state compliance with requirements of the act is major challenge. (PKP)

Examines international assessments, like the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, and what they can tell about how well Canadian students perform relative to other participating jurisdictions and how well jurisdictions do on different assessments at different points in time. Discusses uses of international comparisons to inform…

One way to manage marking error, in a large-scale educational testing context, is to establish a mechanism through which appeals can be lodged. While, at one level, this seems to offer a straightforward technical solution to the problem of marking error, it can also result in unintended consequences, with political, social or educational…

A statistical test for detecting answer copying on multiple-choice tests based on Cohen's kappa is proposed. The test is free of any assumptions on the response processes of the examinees suspected of copying and having served as the source, except for the usual assumption that these processes are probabilistic. Because the asymptotic null and…

Standards-based assessments were prescribed as the cure for the poor accountability of public schools. Billions of dollars have been spent on curricula, tests, and scoring rubrics so that federal and state agencies can rank schools in terms of student achievement. Over the past twenty years, standards-based education has become the defacto, only…

This paper sets out the findings from a large-scale analysis of the Northern Ireland Transfer Procedure Tests, used to select pupils for grammar schools. As it was not possible to get completed test scripts from government agencies, over 3000 practice scripts were completed in simulated conditions and were analysed to establish whether the tests…

The impact of competition on academic outcomes is likely to depend on whether parents are informed about schools' effectiveness or valued added (which may or may not be correlated with absolute measures of their quality), and on whether this information influences their school choices, thereby affecting schools' market outcomes. To explore these…

End-of-course examinations are only as good as the assumptions used in designing them. What is a course's "essential" content? And what does it mean to master it? The end-of-course examinations developed by ACT are derived from assumptions that offer unique and challenging answers to these questions. This brief explains the process used to develop…

This paper looks at underlying patterns of school effectiveness through analysing a GCSE examination data-set over a period of ten cohorts (1993-2002) in one very large English school district. Both value added and raw score approaches were explored by employing different statistical multilevel models to examine time trends of school and pupil…

Elements of network-based assessment systems are envisioned based on recent advances in knowledge and practice in learning theory, assessment design and delivery, and semantic web interoperability. The architecture takes advantage of the meditating role of technology as well as recent models of assessment systems. This overview of the elements…

The Swedish school system comprises: (1) Pre-primary school (Forskola), typical age 1-5; (2) Preschool class in the compulsory school (Grundskola) typical age 6 (participation voluntary); (3) Compulsory school, typical age 7-16, grades 1-9, and (4) Upper secondary school, 17 programmes (4 mainly academic, 13 vocational), typical age 16-19, grades…

Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses continue to receive national recognition for their rigorous curricula, and many colleges and universities award credit to students who score well on end-of-course exams in AP classes. Research suggests that students are better prepared for college if they take these courses and…