The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) articulates the goal that all children can learn and are expected to achieve grade level academic proficiency by 2014. Based on theories underlying models of extrinsic motivation, the fundamental assumption and theory of action is that a system of rewards and sanctions will motivate teachers to focus on…

The primary purpose of this study was to provide quantitative data on the use of released Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exams as benchmark test instruments in a sample population. Teachers have expressed concern over "teaching to the test," especially with the use of benchmark testing. This study was specifically…

College and university quality--what it is and how to identify it--is a preoccupation of many prospective college students and their parents, high school counselors, and college admission personnel. Regardless of class, race, and gender, it is no longer enough for a growing number of individuals simply to attend college: matriculating at an…

As pressure mounts on colleges to document what their students learn, it remains tough to judge from outside the classroom how much knowledge they gain from their academic experience. The traditional measure of learning is the course grade. Nothing says academic success more succinctly than an A. Alternative methods to document learning have…

School start times vary considerably, both across the nation and within individual communities, with some schools beginning earlier than 7:30 a.m. and others after 9:00 a.m. Proponents of later start times, who have received considerable media attention in recent years, argue that many students who have to wake up early for school do not get…

The Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B), a standardized assessment test of business knowledge among undergraduate business seniors, is widely used to measure student achievement. The Educational Testing Service, publisher of the assessment, provides data that allow institutions to compare their own MFT-B performance to national norms, but that…

Aim: Assessing educational outcomes in high-risk populations is crucial for defining long-term outcomes. As standardized tests are costly and time-consuming, we assessed the use of the Teacher Academic Attainment Scale (TAAS) as an outcome measure. Method: Three hundred and forty three children in mainstream schools aged 10 to 11 years (144 males,…

More schools in the United States have begun teaching physics to ninth-graders, but there continues to be limited evidence that such a change benefits students. Many arguments in favor of Physics First and the inverted sequence of physics-chemistry-biology are based more on the intellectual logic of the sequence than on measured outcomes. Paul…

In scholarly terms, a "review of the literature" or "literature review" is a summation of the previous research that has been done on a particular topic. With a "dismissive literature review," a researcher assures the public that no one has yet studied a topic or that very little has been done on it. A "firstness…

As a public school English teacher, the author observes standardized testing season each year with a sort of grim fascination. "So this is it," she thinks as she paces around her silent classroom, peering over kids' shoulders at articles about parasailing. Line graphs tracking the rainfall in Tulsa. Parts of speech. Functions of "x." "These are…

An examination of the 2005-2010 online archives of major American network news stations and newspapers reveals a troubling picture for music education. News stories frequently mention the disappearance of music education. When the media mention the existence of music education, they often promote it as a means of raising standardized test scores…

Contrary to previous research on sequential ratings of student performance, this study found that professional essay raters of a large-scale standardized testing program produced ratings that were drawn toward previous ratings, creating an assimilation effect. Longer intervals between the two adjacent ratings and higher degree of agreement with…

This article reports on a work by Sharon Nelson-Barber, formerly the Director of WestEd's Center for the Study of Culture and Language in Education. The center's research focused primarily on how culture, language, and socioeconomic status influence the ways people think and solve problems. More recently, Nelson-Barber has been exploring how…

Evaluation of the effectiveness of higher education has received unprecedented attention from stakeholders at many levels. The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) is one of the initiatives to evaluate institutional core educational outcomes (e.g., critical thinking, written communication) using standardized tests. As promising as the VSA…

A phenomenological case study by Counsell (2007) explored and investigated the phenomenon of what happened as Florida's A+ Plan intersected with the life histories of one beginning African American female third grade teacher and one veteran White female third grade teacher at demographically different school communities in one Florida school…