A report of a 1986 planning conference on postsecondary assessment is presented along with four commissioned papers from the conference and their summaries. Titles and authors of the papers are as follows: "Postsecondary Assessment: The State of the Art" (Leonard L. Baird); "Assessing Student Progress in College: A Process-Oriented…

The variety of current University of Arizona (UA) faculty and administrative activities that can be thought of as assessment in the broadest sense of the term are reviewed, and the involvement of the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education is noted. UA is involved in assessing both programs and students in many areas in order to improve…

The costs and benefits of Year Round Education (YRE), a system in which students have short, staggered vacation periods, so that only a subgroup of students are attending school at any one time, were explored by the Provo (Utah) City School District. In an effort to accommodate a growing number of students without building additional classrooms,…

This study describes four middle schools which educate poor and minority students more effectively than most middle schools in the New York City public school system. These schools were studied in order to define the characteristics associated with academic effectiveness. Chapter 1 provides the demographics and the test score results for each…

In 1988, a survey was conducted of member institutions of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC). The survey was designed to study and advance the use of student outcomes measures for assessing institutional ffectiveness in two-year institutions. Three sets of student outcomes were identified for in-depth study: academic…

In November 1986, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which, in part, mandated a program granting legal status to certain undocumented residents who had been in the country since before January 1, 1982. The program involves a two-step process by which currently undocumented aliens are granted temporary and,…

This report is a blueprint for the creation of an effective, national program of science education for elementary school children in the United States. It draws together information about curriculum, instruction, assessment, and teacher development for elementary science. It was written in response to a widely expressed need to improve education…

This guide provides classroom assessment models and strategies that can be used by teachers in planning for efficient day-to-day assessment of the English Language Arts Common Curriculum Goals and in tracking individual student progress over time. The guide lists individual grade level expectations from the Common Curriculum Goals with possible…

This evaluation report of Colorado's migrant education program during fiscal year 1987-88 was published according to a federal requirement. The program's background, budget, and funding sources are described. The 1987-88 figures on student and district involvement are reported. In the 1987-88 school year, 4,771 children were identified as eligible…

This study was designed to develop effective and time efficient assessment techniques for self-appraisal of science text and science reading and to assess middle grade students' metacognitive knowledge about science text and science reading. Standardized interviews, word associations, concept maps, and objective examinations were administered to…

It is argued in this paper that a truly holistic approach to school empowerment would legitimize the student as a stakeholder in the educational process. The initial field testing of two developmentally based student feedback mechanisms is described. Focus groups were used with sixth-grade students to assess the "goodness of fit" between…

The development of evaluation criteria for Indiana's three-level system for delivering vocational and technical education (VTE) is described. The comprehensive program covers planning, delivery, and coordination. The coordinating body is the Indiana Commission on Vocational and Technical Education. State-level administering agencies are the…

A two-year study designed to evaluate an elementary language arts program in the Grande Prairie School District (Edmonton, Alberta) through an assessment of student achievement was conducted from 1983 to 1985. A major focus of the study was the area of listening, and the listening tests and teacher's manuals presented in this document are intended…

This report discusses in detail the 1988-89 evaluation study developed by the University of California at Los Angeles Center for Technology Assessment and the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) administration for the purpose of determining the impact of the ACOT project on students, teachers, and parents. Both student achievement in writing and…

This collection of research papers considers extensions of the Rasch model. In Chapter 1, K. C. Cheung explains how measurement and testing in the classroom can be made more meaningful, particularly through the use of Rasch family item response models. In Chapter 2, K. W. Koon and K. C. Cheung apply the Rasch model in constructing a part-whole…