This action research project implemented and evaluated a program for increasing student engagement and retention through the use of authentic assessment and cooperative groups. The targeted population consisted of one sixth grade class in an elementary school and two ninth grade classes in a high school located in different communities in the far…

This book provides comprehensive information on the assessment of children with disabilities. It describes formal and informal procedures for assessing student abilities and achievement, and assessment considerations for special populations. The text is divided into six major parts. Part 1, "Introduction to Assessment: Issues and Concerns,"…

This guide for those in the "High Schools That Work" initiative is designed to help teachers use classroom assessment to motivate students to work harder to meet challenging standards; to get students to organize information, make interdisciplinary connections, synthesize new knowledge, and draw conclusions from what they learn; to…

This document presents the Equipped for the Future Framework (EFF) content standards that were developed over a 6-year period by hundreds of adult education practitioners, experts, and others nationwide to create a working consensus on what adults need to know and be able to do in the 21st century. Chapter 1 defines adult literacy for the 21st…

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 mandates standards-based assessment and skills certification as an integral part of a comprehensive school-to-work (STW) system. An ideal STW assessment system would span elementary through postsecondary education and culminate in assessment of skills at the workplace. It would articulate in progressive…

This document contains seven papers examining the implications of proposed major reforms to the United Kingdom's post-16 sector. "The New Learning Market--Overview" (Caroline Mager) argues for balancing market-driven and planning-driven approaches to planning post-16 education. "Education and Training as a Learning Market"…

This handbook for tech prep practitioners in Texas consists of loose-leaf documents from the performance assessment areas currently available to tech prep practitioners. The first part of the handbook consists of 10 sample assessment documents that were selected from over 900 performance assessment based on a quantitative rating system. The…

A collection of articles on second-language testing includes: "The State of Language Testing in the 1990s" (J. Charles Alderson); "The Exercise of Power and Control in the Rhetorics of Testing" (Elana Shohamy); "Institutional and Political Aspects of Language Testing" (Bernard Spolsky); "Language Planning Policy…

This handbook, which is intended for K-12 teachers in Colorado, explains how to integrate academic content standards and assessments with workplace competencies and school-to-career activities. The handbook is divided into four sections. The first presents the Colorado General Workplace Competencies, which describe the skills and knowledge…

The purpose of this guide is to aid K-12 curriculum planners in the development and implementation of well-defined programs of study in science suitable for their local school districts. Among the national trends reflected in this guide are the interdisciplinary approach; the use of performance-based student assessments; the utilization of diverse…

This guide is intended to provide local agricultural education tech prep programs throughout Colorado with a framework for updating their own curriculum and developing articulation with postsecondary institutions. First, a primer to standards-based education explains the role of the following items in standards-based education in agriculture: (1)…

"The Condition of Education, 2002" is an indicator report, summarizing the health of education, monitoring important developments, and showing trends in major aspects of education. Indicators examine relationships; show changes over time; compare or contrast subpopulations, regions, or countries; or assess characteristics of students from…

This document, which is intended to serve as a guide for work force preparation program providers, details the Illinois occupational skill standards for programs preparing students for employment in occupations in the in-store retailing cluster. The document begins with a brief overview of the Illinois perspective on occupational skill standards…

This document, which replaces the 1985 national guidelines for emergency medical technician (EMT) continuing education (CE), presents guidelines for designing, implementing, and evaluating CE for EMTs. The introduction explains the process used to develop the revised guidelines. Section 1 discusses the following competency assurance principles…

In July 2001, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) agreed to the development of assessment instruments and key performance measures for reporting on student skills, knowledge and understandings in primary science. It directed the newly established Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce…