This historical critique of high-stakes testing in reading focuses on selected events from three historical movements: 1) the history of standardized testing, 2) the history of standardized reading tests, and 3) the history of high-stakes testing. These three interrelated histories have produced the high-stakes, standardized reading tests used in…

Much of the debate on testing over the last two decades has centered on issues of equity. In this review of testing and the minority child, the ways in which schools can test and use test results to help all children learn are explained. (Author)

Truth in testing, competency testing, and intelligence tests constitute the central topics of this newsletter. The authors review a report prepared by the Education Commission of the States on truth-in-testing legislation and litigation, covering recent efforts at the state and federal levels to open the testing process to public scrutiny. They…

Discusses the meaning of intelligence, the social functions that tests serve, the appropriate use of personality tests, controversies regarding IQ measurement, minimum competency testing, test disclosure, test bias, and "truth in testing." Stresses that testing is as much a social and political issue as it is an issue of scientific measurement.…

Commentary and advice in four legal areas are offered in this newsletter on educational law. First, the document outlines preventive legal review for public educators in four basic steps, including anticipation of legal challenges, evaluation of the challenges' legal merits, consideration of the policy issues raised by potential challenges, and…

Remarks made at the conference are summarized in seven sections of this narrative report: (1) update: recent events concerning testing,--representing the viewpoints of school districts, professional associations, government agencies, and research organizations; (2) National Institute of Education (NIE) study of school districts' use of test and…

A persistent problem in U.S. educational research has been how to explain the continuing low performance on standardized tests by certain racial and ethnic minority-group students, such as Chicanos. This chapter identifies abusive practices stemming from standardized testing that help to shape school failure among Chicano students, and discusses…

Educational testing and its uses have come under increasing criticism as they are used more and more for decision making--to determine student tracking assignments, college admission, personnel selection, and licensing policies. The papers from this conference, which discussed the major issues in testing, include: (1) Testing: A Parent's Point of…