Describes methods for assessing graduate students: precourse, incourse, postcourse, and long-term assessment as well as the educational process that students experience. Addresses comprehensive program evaluation via peer review. Lists eight suggested readings and 12 related Web sites. (SK)

Critical questions should be asked about educational evaluation so that it can contribute to development and change. Self- and stakeholder evaluation provide important data. Since the goal of evaluation is to define the value of what is assessed, it is important to use different lenses and methods. (SK)

Summarizes current assessment practices in statistics education, distinguishing between assessment for different purposes and assessment at different educational levels. Highlights recent assessment methods being used for different purposes including individual student evaluation, large-scale group evaluation, and evaluation as a research tool.…

Discusses some practical issues in linking educational assessments, focusing on the importance of clarity of purpose when assessments are linked. Also stresses the importance of the design used to collect data for linking. Uses linking studies from a variety of situations to illustrate these points. (SLD)

Describes findings from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's "Measuring Up 2000: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education," which grades all 50 states' higher education systems. Five categories of performance were evaluated, compared, and graded for each state: preparation, participation, affordability,…

Describes "Measuring Up 2000: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education," a report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education designed to evaluate and compare how each of the 50 states performs in providing its residents with post-secondary education. Discusses its main finding of unequal opportunity between states.…

Describes the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which annually assesses the extent to which students at four-year colleges and universities are participating in educational practices strongly associated with high levels of learning and personal development. Rather than focusing on the institution's resources, the basis of most school…

Reports that the Assessment of Catholic Religious Education (ACRE), which looks at content and technical properties of Catholic education, is being revised. Provides a projected time line for the revision process and states that the new version will be available for the 2001-2002 school year. Asserts that schools need to be ready to make the…

Each Rasch (Masters) partial credit item can be expressed as the sum of independent Rasch binary items and Rasch (or Masters) indecomposable trinary items. If each trinary item is then expressed as the sum of two binary items, the binary items are positively dependent and cannot be both Rasch types. (SLD)

Discusses the hazards of prematurely assessing the result of middle school reforms, noting the phenomenon of the "J-curve" effect that models a decline during an adjustment period before showing a long-term improvement. Considers reasons for this initial decline. (JPB)

Responds to the question of how to know whether reforms have an influence on student learning. Discusses the shift in epistemology about the learning of mathematics, systemic notions about schooling, appropriate evidence related to the notion of schooling practices, and assessing mathematics literacy. (Contains 12 references.) (ASK)

Discusses the fact that alternative approaches to assessment are not more evident in critical pedagogies. Reviews propositions for the revision of assessment from the perspectives of student-centered and critical pedagogy and proposes that it is necessary to understand and work with complex social processes in developing less hierarchical…

Questions use of value-added assessment of student achievement to solve problems of accountability. Discusses three problems associated with value-added assessment: (1) limited accuracy of testing to measure student gains; (2) factors other than teacher or school quality possibly attributable to gains; and (3) lack of gain comparators for students…

Analysis of school improvement projects in Britain and elsewhere identified successful practices: vision, extended view of leadership, program-context match, multilevel approaches, and focus on student outcomes. Projects failed when contextual factors were ignored, schools were treated the same, or single-level perspectives were adopted.…

Presents synopses of panelists David Wolf, Jean Moore, Cecelia Lopez, and Ann Chard's discussions on the forms of learning assessment that were identified as being most effective, according to their accreditation teams. The panel discussion was sponsored by the National Council for Research and Planning, a council of the American Association of…