A survey of school districts across the state of Illinois in 1999 focused on three dimensions of local assessment practices: (1) why districts give tests; (2) the tests they give; and (3) what they do with test results. Telephone interviews were conducted with district assessment coordinators or superintendents from 75 school districts, including…

This book provides classroom teachers with the skills needed to interpret their students assessment results accurately and fairly. It is designed to assist teachers in planning instruction to suit the specific needs of their students. The chapters are: (1) Why Do You Need To Know about Assessment?; (2) What You Must Know about the Assessments You…

This report outlines the work and results of an Educational Assessment Task Force at Mount Hood Community College (Oregon) that was charged with improving institutional planning, strengthening programs and services, and meeting external accountability demands. The task force addressed both institutional effectiveness (the annual assessment of…

This document reports on a research project held in 2005, which looked to see how performance indicators related to area needs. It shows the results of research across four Learning and Skills Council (LSC) areas, with contributions also from national stakeholders and other witnesses. Findings include: (1) Performance indicators are regarded as…

In accordance with the European processes of integrated and homogeneous education, the paper presents the essential viewpoints and questions covering the establishment and development of "distance learning" (DL) in Republic of Croatia. It starts from the advantages of distance learning versus traditional education taking into account…

A study was conducted to investigate the stability of rater severity over an extended rating period. Multifaceted Rasch analysis was applied to ratings of writing performances of 8,285 primary school (elementary) students. Each performance was rated on two performance dimensions by two trained raters over a period of 7 rating days. Performances…

During the years 1993-96, there has existed an active discussion group entitled "Using Open-Ended Problems in Mathematics" as a part of the scientific program of the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) conference. This report contains revised versions of presentations given in the discussion group. Since the PME is an international…

This paper summarizes main findings from an investigation of the familiarity and importance of assessment practices from the perspectives of Mexican teachers, counselors, and administrators. A survey that listed 74 practices, sampling 7 areas of competencies, was assembled from the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education, the Standards for…

This document is a report on the state of applied arts and technology colleges in Ontario, Canada. It includes a message from the Chair of the Association as well as the Chair of the Committee of Presidents, and a report from the Executive Director of the Association. In the advocacy and communications arena, chief among the successes for the year…

The first step in a multi-stage approach to assessment of the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Art at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, this study assessed the department's introductory course. Data came from cognitive pre/post tests, self reports, and peer evaluations. Results indicated that: (1) students scored higher on…

This paper presents a history of California's offices of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Board of Education, and Secretary of Education by tracing the creation and development of these respective authorities. It discusses the origins of these offices, from the drafting of California's first constitution through the present day, and…

This report describes a computer tool used by the state of New York to assess student performance in elementary and secondary grades. Based on the premise that every assessment is a system of interacting elements, the tool examines students on six dimensions: vision, prompt, coaching context, performance, standards, and reflection. Vision, which…

This manual is designed as a technical resource to explain the accountability system used by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to evaluate the performance of public school districts and campuses. The system integrates district accreditation status; campus ratings; district and campus recognition for high performance and performance improvement; and…

This program review manual provides a common or minimum set of review criteria and standard reporting procedures for colleges to use in conducting a self study to determine how well programs are functioning in relation to stated objectives, the mission and resources of the college and district, and the needs of the students and the community…

This survey of students at Cabrillo College contains feedback on a variety of subject matters ranging from quality of general educational courses, cultural diversity, fairness of grading and preparation for further study or for the workplace. Responses were subjected to statistical significance testing and compared with results from the 1999…