The Vision Partnership is an alliance between the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and One Sight Vision Partnership that began in 2007 to address the vision and vision-related health needs of students who cannot afford eye care services. Vision screenings, consultations, and fittings for corrective eyewear are provided at no cost to…

The British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) seeks to foster a constructive discussion on the issue of standardized testing. To that end, the Federation urges the BC Ministry of Education to adopt a two-year moratorium on all standardized tests, including the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) and the Grade 10, 11, and 12 provincial…

This meta-analysis summarized the correlational evidence of the association between the CBM Oral Reading measure (R-CBM) and other standardized measures of reading achievement for students in grades 1-6. Potential moderating variables were also examined (source of criterion test, administration format, grade level, length of time, and type of…

There is no doubt that in the past 10 years, school culture has become a testing culture. But all the "multiple measures" do not really lead one to achieve the three most often cited goals of testing: building proficiency in basic skills, closing achievement gaps, and fostering the top-notch knowledge and skills that students will need…

Learning as much as possible about what to expect and how best to select among response choices enables students to improve their scores so as to reflect more fully their knowledge and abilities, whether taking the SAT, ACT, AP history exams, multiple-choice exams in college courses, the GRE, or any other standardized examinations that include…

Speech and language difficulties in British pre-school children from disadvantaged backgrounds have become increasingly prevalent over the last decade. Consequently, there has been a growing demand for a British standardised speech and language screening tool that is reliable and valid. In 2000, to fulfil the need of an appropriate tool that could…

Technology is transforming many aspects of society including the ways teachers teach and students learn. Although technology has been firmly established as a teaching tool across a range of content areas, educators are realizing that technology also offers innovative ways to help their students take standardized tests that comply with the mandates…

The Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center at the University of California is developing assessments that are as psychometrically sound as standardized tests and as instructionally relevant as teacher-made, classroom assessments. The BEAR system employs four principles similar to those outlined by the National Research Council:…

Rather than regard frequent and subjective testing as a negative, it should prove more beneficial for educators to offer students an opportunity to acquire life skills that will carry them through any test-taking situation. Offering students the skills necessary to succeed not only in the classroom but also through testing is where accountability…

In this study we examined the effects of syntactic and lexical complexity on third-grade students' comprehension of science texts. A total of 16 expository texts were designed to represent systematic differences in levels of syntactic and lexical complexity across four science-related topics ("Tree Frogs, Soil, Jelly Beans and…

This action research developed as a response to the researcher's experience with struggling and alliterate readers across all content areas in secondary schools. The researcher witnessed the negative impact of a depressed economy and depressed reading proficiency pervasive among students based on classroom experience and standardized testing. The…

This book identifies the six fearless decisions that school leaders need to make to be successful. The author analyzes the top fears that impede effective leadership and lower student achievement, then provides a step by step antidote that will change fear into intention, increase confidence, and produce positive results in your school. In this…

The purpose of this study was three-fold. First, the study determined the effects of mathematics teaching strategies on the performance of elementary students on a state-standardized test. More specifically, this study was concerned with the influence of the Everyday Math teaching strategies versus the Sharon Wells' teaching strategies on the…

This one-year study explores the possibility of integrating critical pedagogy into undergraduate English writing classes in Taiwan. The participants were the students in 2 first-year writing classes taught by the researcher. For these classes, I reinvented Freire's (2000) pedagogy of the oppressed, which emphasizes problem-posing, dialogue, and…

Due to the lack of effectiveness of the punitive school approach toward challenging behaviors (Luiselli, Putnam, Handler, & Feinberg, 2005; Reynolds, Skiba, Graham, Sheras, Conoley, & Garcia-Vazquez, 2006), public schools have searched for an innovative approach to better serve students who are at risk for academic failure and dropout/expulsion. A…