Case studies of six school districts point to ineffective, even detrimental teacher selection practices (recruitment limitations, screening criteria biases, hiring irregularities, and traumatic teacher orientations) and suggest ways for policymakers to help districts attract, employ, and retain talented teachers. Includes eight references. (MLH)

This article reports on medical students' choice of their own gender psychiatrist from July 1980 through June 1984 at the Harvard Medical Area Health Service. Findings are presented. (Author/MT)

The article discusses principles of selecting and maintaining hearing aids with appropriate amplification for children. Four case studies (with associated graphs) illustrate the high performance possible when aids and earmolds are properly selected and maintained. (DB)

Current teacher certification tests are simplistic, multiple-choice, and context free. They quiz knowledge of terms and laws rather than proving comprehensive understanding of educational theory and practice. Such tests are effective neither in selecting good teachers nor in establishing a broad and realistic professional knowledge base. (LHW)

Provides a listing of 92 textbooks used in high school and college introductory psychology courses. Popular high school textbooks are identified separately. Journal citations for reviews of 78 of these textbooks are provided. (JDH)

Special education elementary students (N=271) were tested on three reading passages; six readability formulas were applied to the passages. Rank orderings of the passages based on readability formulas failed to agree with those based on students' actual performance. Implications for measuring students' reading proficiency and for selecting…

A New York school district established demanding teacher employment practices that required teacher applicants to complete a questionnaire, give a teaching demonstration, and participate in an interview with the superintendent and all six district principals. Favorable responses from the candidates and the principals declare the process effective.…

A laboratory simulation was conducted to assess teacher selection decision making from the perspective of teachers. Results indicate that personality characteristics of interviewers influence decisions made by applicants. Implications are discussed. (MT)

Four examples of general language performance measures for preschoolers are described to suggest a rationale for test selection. Advantages and limitations are noted for the Houston Test for Language Development, Preschool Language Scale, the Hannah-Gardner Preschool Language Screening Test, and the Test of Early Language Development. (CL)

Counselors today are presented with a number of differing applications software. This article intends to advance the counselor's knowledge and considerations of the various aspects of application software. Included is a discussion of the software applications typically of help to counselors in (a) managing their work (computer managed counseling);…

This paper discusses optimal test construction, which deals with the selection of items from a pool to construct a test that performs optimally with respect to the objective of the test and simultaneously meets all test specifications. Optimal test construction problems can be formulated as mathematical decision models. Algorithms and heuristics…

The purpose of this booklet is to reinforce the thesis that the committee on directors of a foundation board must perform with excellence if the board as a whole is to fulfill its responsibilities with distinction. The committees principal responsibilities include assembling the right mix of director talent, training and organizing that talent,…

Holding schools accountable for student achievement can only work if the goals are clear. California's school standards are well-regarded nationally for their clarity and their rigor, but it is not clear what courses students are expected to take beyond the minimum graduation requirements. The paper discusses the relatively successful efforts to…

Item analysis is a very important consideration in the test development process. It is a statistical procedure to analyze test items that combines methods used to evaluate the important characteristics of test items, such as difficulty, discrimination, and distractibility of the items in a test. This paper reviews some of the classical methods for…