Schools and school districts across the country are under pressure to show that student performance on standardized tests is improving. Much of this pressure is based on the idea that clear expectations, combined with sanctions for poor performance, will motivate educators and students to try harder and do better. The federal No Child Left Behind…

This study investigates relationships between teachers' receipt of high-stakes test score results of their students and subsequent changes in instructional and classroom assessment practices the following year. The sample consisted of 722 elementary, middle, and high school teachers. The results indicate that most teachers reported using the…

Recently NWEA completed a project to connect the scale of the WKCE with NWEA's RIT scale. Six Wisconsin school systems participated in the study, using test information from a group of over 1,500 students enrolled in fourth, eighth, and tenth grade who took both the WKCE and NWEA tests in the fall of 2003. Information from these tests was used in…

This report discusses the steep increases in second language activity at Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC) over the past two decades. During this time span, credit language course activity has grown from 28,391 credits in 1980 to 76,608 credits in 2001. This is an increase of 48,217 credits in second language courses. Total credits grew by…

This report summarizes experiences of the New York Networks for School Renewal (NYNSR), which developed school networks for mutual support and accountability and promoted small size, autonomy, personalization, and professional teaching communities. Researchers compared NYNSR outcomes to comparable outcomes for the New York City (NYC) school system…

Recommendations for the aggressive recruitment of minority teachers are based on hypothesized role model effects for minority students as well as evidence of racial bias among non-minority teachers. However, prior empirical studies have found little or no association between exposure to an "own-race" teacher and level of student…

This paper describes the development of the Benesse Proficiency Test of English Communication, which was created for the Benesse Corporation of Japan. The Benesse test was developed in response to Japan's movement toward more communicative English language teaching and testing. It was intended to test language used in authentic communication. The…

This volume offers the educational leader reviews of research on five timely educational issues: citizenship education, multicultural education, gifted and talented education, classroom assessment, and scheduling. The chapters treating citizenship education review both the research about and practice of citizenship education in K-12 schooling.…

This study examined elementary teachers' perspectives about key aspects of standard-based education reform. Using survey data from teachers in schools of varying poverty and student achievement levels, the study explored beliefs about elements of standards-based reform and perceptions of principals' emphases on instruction and test scores.…

This report presents U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige's "back to school" address to the National Press Club on September 4, 2001. Noting that little progress has been made despite $147 billion spent on federal education programs since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the speech discusses the principles of the…

The writer looks at the often contradictory ways in which tests are seen and used. We are told by its defenders that the SAT is a superb measure of academic promise, but its detractors insist that it is next to useless in helping colleges and universities select their entering class. Test-driven accountability systems have been criticized as…

This issue of Occasional Papers began as a Graduate School seminar honoring Steven Schultz, a much beloved and respected faculty member whose untimely death from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses left a terrible hole in the lives of Bank Street staff members. The seminar, organized by Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Virginia Casper, a close friend…

This paper discusses the rationale for designing better literacy assessment for elementary school children. The "Literacy Profile" is a literacy assessment procedure designed to collect data about groups of elementary students and track literacy development more effectively than current standardized tests. It assumes that literacy…

In testing, educators have two competing intentions. They want to be fair in allowing students to demonstrate what they know without creating testing conventions and formats that let students pretend to know. Teaching-the-test literature shows that test scores can be inflated, meaning that they can go up without a generalized increase in…

The psychometric properties of the testing tools of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), the state standardized testing program, are examined. Reliability studies have indicated that the scores from the MEAP, ranging from 0.654 to 0.949, are generally acceptable. The State Department of Education offered supporting evidence for the…