Much discussion in educational circles centers on such issues as assessment, student performance, parent conferences, and related topics. The 1996 Yearbook provides information about and examples of outstanding assessment reporting systems in use in the United States and Canada. The following contributions are included: (1) "Introduction" (Thomas…

A 1994 review of international policy research on accountability in education indicates that there is widespread concern over policy content, processes, and consequences. Current purposes tend to be polarized by a simplistic dualism--hyperindividualism versus communitarianism. Policies and practices often exhibit neocentralist assumptions. This…

Recognizing the importance of national educational assessments, an increasing number of countries have begun to establish their own systems, and many have sought support from the World Bank. This book provides background on national assessments through papers developed for three World Bank seminars. The papers are: (1) "Introduction"…

This progress report, as required by Act 359 of the South Carolina General Assembly, describes activities of a consortium of business and academic leaders toward development of a performance-based funding plan based on 37 performance indicators for public institutions of higher education in the state. Briefly summarized are the status of: measures…

The most important issue in education today is helping students reach high standards. These standards are changing American education from a system driven by inputs and regulations to one judged by results. This manual is intended for use with any set of standards. Followed step by step, it will take the teacher from the abstract statements of the…

A pilot study to investigate the use of concept mapping for assessment purposes was conducted during the spring of 1996. Thirteen teachers from a random sample of science teachers affiliated with the Iowa-Scope, Sequence, and Coordination Project and 12 other teachers affiliated with the project participated in the concept mapping study. Student…

Virtually every educator espouses a model of human learning that has evolved from or has been influenced by the research of psychologists. It seems that psychological knowledge has and will continue to hold an indispensable place in American education. The question of importance is whether school psychologists can elevate their status from one of…

Parent opinions about standardized tests and performance assessments were examined systematically. Mutually exclusive but randomly equivalent stratified samples from schools participating in a study of performance assessment and control schools were used to measure change in parent opinion over time. Approximately one-third of parents (n=105)…

This guidebook explains the purpose and rationale for initiating a portfolio process in the schools. A fundamental authentic assessment principle holds that students should demonstrate, rather than be required to tell or be questioned about, what they know and can do. The use of portfolios has gained significant attention as an alternative to…

In 1989 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published the "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" (Standards). This document provides benchmark statements about specific aspects of the curriculum and about evaluation against which school divisions can judge their own specific curricula. In the fall of…

Performance based assessment refers to tasks that require students to construct responses or take actions to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Performance assessment tasks appear in a variety of formats, but they focus on higher order skills and are nonroutine, and sometimes loosely structured, in nature. A number of concerns have been…

This document provides papers presented at a conference that focused on the ways in which definitions of quality are translated into practice in early childhood education and on ways to assess the quality of practice. The conference included four keynote lectures, presentation of six papers, and four symposia. The lectures, which are not included…

Testing of skills in reading, mathematics, and English as a second language (ESL) was conducted at 12 programs for homeless people in California in 1992; 2,111 homeless persons were evaluated. Analysis of the data revealed that approximately 63 percent of the participants were male and 37 percent were female; 35 percent were between 20-29, 39…

It is crucial that measures and indicators for important aspects of the educational system be found and collected. As the education system strives to meet commonly identified goals, effective inputs become easier to identify and become more amenable to common collection and use, overcoming the two major impediments to developing national education…

The New Standards Project conducted a pilot test of a series of performance-based assessment tasks in mathematics and English language arts at Grades 4 and 8 in the spring of 1993. This paper reports the results of a series of generalizability analyses conducted for a subset of the 1993 pilot study data in mathematics. Generalizability analyses…