Writing is an essential skill for participating in modern American society. Although it is crucial to careers and civic engagement, student writing falls far short of national expectations (College Board, 2004; NCES, 2012; Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) seek to increase the rigor of writing instruction…

Assessments matter in education. Testing is nothing new; tests have been around as long as school itself. However, over the last 15 years, state assessments have grown to be an increasingly central, and often controversial, part of schooling. As states raise their standards, it is more important than ever to ask: What is a high-quality assessment?…

Based on a writing program evaluation project that took place in the Ferguson-Florissant School District in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, this booklet provides administrators and policymakers with a plan for evaluating their own writing programs and also provides results of the Ferguson-Florissant evaluation. The first chapter contains…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores approaches to, problems with, and trends in large scale writing assessment. The digest first compares direct and indirect assessment approaches, then examines three approaches to scoring: holistic, primary trait, and analytic. It then discusses issues and…

The results of an evaluation of Vermont's statewide assessment initiative are presented, with information about the implementation of the program, its effects on educational practice, the analytic challenge presented by the portfolio scoring process, the reliability and validity of portfolio scores, and the tensions between assessment and…

Accuracy in the scoring of writing is critical if standardized tasks are to be used in a national assessment scheme. Three approaches to establishing accuracy (i.e., consensus, consistency, and measurement) exist and commonly large-scale assessment programs of primary school writing demonstrate adjacent agreement consensus rates of between 80% and…

Learning to read and write is critical to a child's success in school and adult life. One of the best predictors of whether children will function competently in school and, later, contribute to the increasingly literate society is their progress in reading and writing. For this reason, the 1985 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…

This four-section report presents information on the 1982-83 Louisiana State Assessment Program. The major purpose of the program is to assess student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics. Section I discuses the scope of the 1982-83 program, provides highlights of results, and briefly considers test administration and reporting…

This report summarizes the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TABS) results for 1984. TABS assesses student achievement in mathematics, reading, and writing, including composition. The criterion-referenced tests are based on stated learning objectives and are administered annually to Texas students in grades 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Grade 3 results…

Goal-referenced tests and standardized achievement tests were used to assess the basic skill levels for reading, writing, and mathematics of students attending Parkrose Public Schools of Portland (Oregon) during the 1983-84/1985-86 period. Focus is on estimating the instructional program's success, providing a resource for planning and…

The monograph presents the writing of suitable "follow-up" books for new adult readers in developing countries in the dual context of lifelong learning and of support for development by communication. It presents writing for new readers from the perspectives of high level policy makers, reading materials specialists in ministries and…

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) Core Battery for use in teacher certification in Louisiana. This information was produced to assist in the recommendation and establishment of a required score on the NTE. The jury judgment approach was used. Panels of faculty members were drawn from…