The Italian educational system's experiences with national examinations might help United States educators understand the impact of state tests on students, schools, and education in general. (JT)

Recent experience of test development in Ireland, which had no tradition of formal standardized testing, is described, in order to highlight a number of practical and psychometric problems. It is pointed out that some conventional procedures for developing norm-referenced attainment tests have limitations, especially in countries with centralized…

Discusses issues and implication underlying the graduation competency testing movement in the social studies. Presents advantages and disadvantages of commercially and locally developed tests and outlines steps in selecting competencies and preparing tests. (KC)

Examines results from this year's American College Testing (ACT) program and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). There has been little change the past year in minority student scores. While average minority student scores fell by at least .1 point from last year, all minority groups have experiences long-term gains. (DF)

Developing national academic standards may improve students' preparation for work or college. However, any proposed new national assessment system will be doomed to failure if seen as the cure-all for the country's educational ills. The contributors to this "NASSP Bulletin" issue examine numerous challenges associated with using tests as a tool to…

Recently, governments have become interested in assessment as a key mechanism for monitoring and intervening in the educational process. Problems in implementing new approaches to assessment in the context of national testing and evidence from a new national test are illustrated through the National Assessment of England and Wales. (SLD)

This paper describes pilot testing of Great Britain's standard assessment tasks (SATs), focusing on children with special educational needs. Two SATs were produced (Change and Movement) to assess three core subjects (English, mathematics, and science.) The need for SAT adaptations to allow children with disabilities equal access is stressed. (JDD)

Critiques the use of a comprehensive National Courses Examination (NCE) administered by the Brazilian Government to appraise the quality of undergraduate courses offered by all higher education institutions in the country. Describes the NCE and considers it as an instrument of institutional evaluation. Examines also the key problems underlying…

Provides details on the instrument development, sample design, data collection, and data analysis procedures of the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) long-term trend and main assessments for the United States. (Author/SLD)

Comments on the 1998 Civics Assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The broad coverage of the assessment answers many questions about students' knowledge of politics and government and the teacher and classroom context for learning about civics. (SLD)

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 has focused the attention of educators, policy makers, and the public on accountability for performance in public education. Yet many of those who will be responsible for improving school performance lack guidance on how to proceed in the brave new world of NCLB accountability. For the most part, state…

From President Bush on down, the pressure is on to fix America's high schools. Despite a broad consensus that something is seriously wrong with the institution, deep fault lines remain about the remedies. Part of the reluctance to address high schools has been their complexity. The sheer size, departmental structure, mission creep, and other…

We make five over-time comparisons of student knowledge of civics and government: a) knowledge among 4th, 8th, and 11/12th graders between 1975/6 and 1998 using two separate NAEP trend assessments; b) knowledge over the same period by comparing responses to individual items asked in the 1975/6 and 1981/2 assessments to responses on identical…

This paper reports the results of a special urban study of the 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress which indicates that city school districts may be seeing some payoff from years of work to improve mathematics instruction. However, similar initiatives to raise reading achievement have not led to significant gains. While, most of the 11…

This study extends the knowledge garnered from work with younger populations to determine the reading comprehension strategies most important to adults' success on outcome measures and to align them with previously researched interventions. According to an analysis of competence-based standardized tests of literacy (such as the General Educational…