School accountability systems have been roundly criticized for their narrowness, being largely informed by standardized achievement scores. With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, accountability systems may become more multifaceted in coming years. This study examines pilot results of an alternative school quality framework--one…

Over the past decade, standardized test results have become the primary tool used to judge the effectiveness of schools and educational programs, and today, standardized testing serves as the keystone for educational policy at the state and federal levels. This paper examines the relationship between fourth grade mathematics achievement and…

The goal of this study was to identify the effects of state-level standards-based reform on teaching and learning, paying particular attention to the state test and associated stakes. On-site interviews were conducted with 360 educators (elementary, middle, and high school teachers) in 3 states (120 in each state) attaching different stakes to the…

This report provides information about the performance of 2009 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors; and self-reported at the time of testing that they were scheduled to graduate in 2009 and tested under standard time conditions. This report focuses on: (1) Performance: student test performance in the context of…

In 1990, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) included a Trial State Assessment (TSA); for the first time in NAEP's history, voluntary state-by-state assessments were made. In 1994, TSA was expanded to include non-public school students. The 1994 reading assessment considered students' proficiency in situations that involved…

In 1998 for the first time, the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) administered a writing assessment at the state level. This report describes the writing achievement of Massachusetts eighth-grade students and compares their overall performance to students in the Northeast region of the United States and the nation (using data from…

In 1990, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) included a Trial State Assessment (TSA); for the first time in NAEP's history, voluntary state-by-state assessments were made. In 1992, the NAEP Program included an expanded TSA in fourth-grade reading. The 1992 reading assessment considered students' performance in situations that…

Many states have implemented high-stakes testing since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Yet the question remains whether high-stakes tests effectively measure student proficiency. This report describes a study that compared results on high-stakes tests with results on other standardized tests not used for accountability…

The 1998 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) state level reading assessment measured fourth- and eighth-grade students' reading proficiency in situations that involved reading for three purposes: reading for literary experience, reading to gain information, and reading to perform a task (grade 8 only). This report describes the…

Ways in which an evaluation of bilingual programs could be appropriately conducted were studied, using two transitional bilingual education programs. In Program A, the first language (Spanish) is the initial medium for all instruction with a gradual phasing in of English. Program A is located in a large suburban school system in central…

Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Physics, and Ecology assessment instruments were administered to approximately 1,800 nine year old and 1,800 seventeen year old Massachusetts students. The 9 year old students exceeded the performance of a national and international sampling of students. They equaled the performance of a sampling of students from…

The Massachusetts Statewide Educational Assessment in Consumer Education covers six content areas: borrowing, buying, investing, planning, protecting, and sharing. Nine year old and seventeen year old students were selected from various kinds of communities, six regions of the state, and from varying family occupational backgrounds. Both male and…

This report provides selected results from the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for Massachusetts' public-school students at grades 4 and 8. Since 1992, reading has been assessed in four different years at the state level (at grade 4 in 1992 and 1994, and at both grades 4 and 8 in 1998 and 2002). Massachusetts participated…

A decline in student performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the Achievement Tests, the American College Test, and the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test has been observed nationally since the mid 1960's and evidence indicates that very similar trends have occurred in Massachusetts. Score declines have occurred in public, private, and…

At the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the call for all students to be "proficient" in reading and mathematics by 2014. Yet the law expects each state to define proficiency as it sees fit and design its own tests. This study investigated three research questions related to this policy: (1) How consistent are various…