aimswebPlus® is an assessment, data management, and reporting system that provides national and local performance and growth norms for the screening and progress monitoring of math and reading skills for all students in kindergarten through 8th grade. aimswebPlus uses two types of measures: (1) "curriculum-based measures" (CBMs)--brief,…

Teachers in rural Native American Pueblo schools in New Mexico lack professional development opportunities due to the long distances between the Pueblos and academic institutions. Previously, most schools received "hit and run" professional development sessions conducted once or twice a year that did not address the real issues faced by…

When students do not score well on standardized tests, their school can suffer. In an attempt to improve standardized test scores, a district placed students into a program called Seminar to help them work on weak areas of content through personalized instruction. The purpose of this project study was to assess if the Seminar program had a…

The purpose of this paper was to describe the process of development of assessment instruments for the Comparing Options in Secondary Mathematics: Investigating Curriculum (COSMIC) project. The COSMIC project was a three-year longitudinal comparative study focusing on evaluating high school students' mathematics learning from two distinct…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

In May 1983 the California State University (CSU) introduced the Entry-Level Mathematics (ELM) examination as part of its basic skills assessment process for first-time freshmen and undergraduate transfers. The exam is intended to provide students and counselors with information on the levels of mathematical competency possessed by entering…

This report evaluates the reading and mathematics lab programs for elementary and secondary students in the Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District. The reading program served 510 students in 13 schools and mathematics program served 240 students in 7 schools. A variety of assessment instruments were used to pinpoint students'…