Assessing students' historical understanding has been a long-standing challenge in history education. One of the widely used tools for accomplishing this task is the large-scale standardized test, the results of which are used as an indicator of student knowledge and skills in the social sciences/history. At the national level, the National…

President George W. Bush's approach to education policy has earned him cautious plaudits from otherwise hostile critics, who see much to admire in the implementation of standards for education. However useful such standards for testing students' technical skills like arithmetic and reading, they create problems for less-standardized processes like…