Appraisal of a school's relative effectiveness is complicated by: (1) the need to control for input differences; (2) measurement error in input measures; and (3) small sample size within schools. This study compares the performance of two successive cohorts in 19 schools in a small midwestern city on the five Iowa Tests of Basic Skills using both…

This guide defines the basic competencies in reasoning and describes how to incorporate them into the educational program at all grade levels. Reasoning is the ability to approach day-to-day problems with intelligent decision-making skills. It is important for students to begin developing reasoning skills at an early age and in all subject areas.…

Funding for compensatory education programs for grades K-6 in Michigan has, since 1971, been based on the results of statewide achievement tests rather than on socioeconomic factors. The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) achievement tests are administered to public school students in fourth and seventh grades. To be eligible for state…

Guidelines for self evaluation by middle schools and junior high schools and by visiting committees are outlined in this publication. The guide is divided into 12 sections. The first is the manual, which provides recommendations for implementation and follow-up of the evaluation procedure. The remaining parts consist of guiding principles, forms,…

Citizenship test items developed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress were administered to a large sample of 9, 13, and 17-year old students, as part of the Texas Assessment Project. The knowledge and attitudes assessed fell into three categories: (1) political knowledge: constitutional rights, governmental structure, governmental…

The career education project conducted by the Mesa (Arizona) Unified School District was designed to develop a written objectives-based Model Accountability System (MAS) that identifies terminal career education behaviors according to several themes, specifies assessment items for each objective, and provides a monitoring system and mastery…

Public distrust in schools should not be attributed to poorer schools or less able students; it exists because we have a different kind of parent and a different world ahead. Parents of today's children were trained not to accept the status quo, but to question; furthermore, underlying parents' concern about the schools is a fear that their…

The major emphasis of the Kentucky Educational Assessment Program is to determine the actual level of performance of Kentucky pupils in relation to the desired levels of performance established in the 1972 report entitled "Goals of Education in Kentucky." The report was published by the Kentucky State Department of Education and contains…

Founded in 1972 as part of the private, non-profit Edwin Gould Outdoor Education Centers, the Hillside Outdoor Education Center offers services to various educational groups by providing residential experiences for students and faculty, day-visit programs, school-site outdoor education programs, teacher workshops, college courses in outdoor…

The concern of educators and the general public over the decline in basic skills achievement of students nationwide has led to a national push for results-oriented instruction and educational accountability. Many states are developing tests for life-related competencies which students should master during the schooling process. States moving…

Participant evaluation research is described as a combination of three recent trends: action research conducted by teachers in their own classrooms, social action programs involving parent and community participation, and subjective epistemology which includes perceptions and contextual information within the accepted database. The planning phase…

The sociolinguistic assessment model employed in this study demonstrated a useful approach for examining the interrelationships between community and school goals regarding bilingual education. As results indicated, not only do educators and parents differ in their sociolinguistic characteristics, but also in their selection of a bilingual…

The process of constructing a test to assess geographic knowledge and understandings of fifth and sixth grade pupils is discussed. In addition, a draft of a test to measure geography skills and knowledge of physical and human geography is presented. The document is presented in three sections. In section I, information is presented on test…

Project PAVE was implemented in Travis High School, Austin, Texas, to extend and coordinate services for certain high school special education students. Four components were crucial to the Project PAVE model: parental involvement, academic achievement, vocational programing, and extracurricular opportunities. The project evaluation, conducted in…

The Adult Basic Education (ABE) program conducted by the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was evaluated. Data were collected via staff interviews and record reviews during site visits at ABE facilities located in five of six district comprising the Trust Territory. Focus of the evaluation activities was on program administration,…