In order to encourage school districts to include students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in educational assessments, this report discusses issues involved in assessing students with LEP. Topics include: (1) the role of testing in education and the different types of tests mandated by educational reform legislation; (2) characteristics of…

For 2 decades, policymakers have pretended that bureaucratic, state-imposed standards, testing, and sanctions will fundamentally raise all schoolchildren's academic achievement and create productive citizens. The losers have been children of the poor, working class, and undereducated. Policymakers are holding schools and children accountable for…

The shortcomings of standardized testing as the predominant form of student assessment in the United States are reviewed, and the use and potential benefits of portfolio assessment are explored. Children's educational experiences and their future job prospects and standards of living are being decided by test scores. Moreover, these test scores…

This study is the second in a series designed to explore the probable consequences of exceeding the prescribed time limits in the administration of standardized achievement tests. This study considered whether the test user could apply norms that accompany the test if departures were made from established time limits, and whether increased testing…

This review of the literature addresses scientific and methodological concerns of research with children from various racial and ethnic backgrounds in the United States. It first identifies three major demographic trends: (1) the increasingly multiethnic and multilingual nature of American society; (2) the increasing number of children in poverty;…

Following a workshop on "Innovations in Employment Testing that Improve Validity and Reduce Adverse Impact," the City of Louisville (Kentucky) implemented a strategy to develop a comprehensive testing and recruiting program for police recruits. To improve candidate expectations and preparation, the following activities were undertaken:…

The use of performance based evaluation on a national scale with 7-year-olds in the United Kingdom is described, and the impact of national assessment on teaching practice and implications of this type of assessment are considered. The national assessment program in the United Kingdom started in earnest in 1991 when all 7-year-olds were assessed…

This pair of studies investigated the psychometric adequacy of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) with a population of 8,396 potentially gifted elementary children of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds as well as diverse emotional and social environments. Study I showed subjects' profiles differed strikingly from…

Intended both to evaluate the California testing program's success in assessing student achievement in the basic skills and to suggest possible improvements in the program, this report includes an executive summary evaluating current testing procedures, describing experimental studies on new ways of testing and reporting testing information, and…

This report describes the development, operation, maintenance, and future prospects of the item banks pioneered by the Portland (Oregon) School District. At the time of this report, there were 3,500 mathematics, 2,200 reading, and 2,300 language usage items calibrated under the fixed parameter model of item response theory (IRT) for Grades 3-8.…

The field testing process for the collection of data on the norms, reliability, and concurrent validity of the Career Decision-Making System (CDM) is described. The CDM is a comprehensive career planning instrument that surveys interests, values, abilities, and training plans and relates them to career information in client-oriented interpretive…

American school officials almost invariably compare local and national achievement through one of the following norm-referenced tests: (1) the California Achievement Test; (2) the Stanford Achievement Test; (3) the Metropolitan Achievement Test; (4) the Science Research Associates Test; (5) the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills; and (6) the Iowa…

Testwise responses of grade-school students to multiple-choice science items and the intercorrelations between different testwiseness skills were examined in this document. A total of 134 third-grade, 133 fifth-grade, and 143 sixth-grade students from two elementary schools in a large suburban school district in Utah responded to 60 science items…

Three articles on current research in testing are presented. The first article, "Testing in the Schools", discusses the role of testing in educational reform. In the 1980s, the overwhelming purpose of state standardized testing has become promoting accountability in areas of: (1) monitoring; (2) gatekeeping; (3) remediation; and (4)…

A basic technical framework is provided for the design and use of mastery tests. The Mastery Testing Project (MTP) prepared this framework using advanced mathematics supplemented with computer simulation based on real test data collected by the South Carolina Statewide Testing Program. The MTP focused on basic technical issues encountered in using…