The degree to which between-group differences in performance on individual questions on the NTE Professional Knowledge Test conform to expectations was studied for 19,307 examinees who had taken the NTE Core Battery. Some items are quite consistent with the intended test interpretation test, whereas others are less consistent. (SLD)

Discusses decision making and politics in teacher education. In Papua New Guinea, poor command of the English language led to implementation of an intensive, controversial program in teacher education colleges. The article presents comments on teacher education, language, and competency testing in England, Wales, Brazil, Canada, and the United…

Asserts that the current national standards movement is a broadly based discussion and debate about what art educators hope to and should accomplish through their work. Reviews the origins and process of developing national art education standards. (CFR)

Examines British national examination results and related trends in the declining level of performance in modern languages relative to other subjects, suggesting that this trend to underperform in modern languages may be due in part to the relative difficulty of the examinations. The paper proposes strategies to help teachers become more rigorous…

States are the primary policymakers in several important areas of K-12 education. Given their dominant role in educational funding and regulation, states not surprisingly have been the primary initiators of the latest wave of educational reform starting in the mid-1980s. In this paper, the authors sought to test indirectly for the effects of…

In early May 2002, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released a study of U.S. history achievement among fourth, eight, and twelfth graders, finding that nearly 60 percent of high school senior test-takers failed to demonstrate basic knowledge of U.S. history. Although the hand-wringing has begun about what "must be done" to…

An important predictor of whether students remain in school or withdraw is their ability to identify with academics. Consistent with Ogbu's (1992) cultural inversion and Steele's (1992) stereotype threat hypotheses, research has shown that Black and Hispanic students tend to demonstrate higher levels of academic disidentification relative to Asian…

More than a dozen statistical models have been developed for the purpose of cognitive diagnosis. These models are supposed to extract a much finer level of information from item responses than traditional unidimensional item response models. In this paper, a general diagnostic model (GDM) was used to analyze a set of simulated sparse data and real…

Discusses possible impact of a new system of examination of high school physics students in England and Wales. Outlines the schemes of assessment that have been accepted by the Secondary Education Council as meeting the new National Criteria, and suggests how teachers might begin to produce their own assessment programs. (TW)

Using a production-functions approach, analyzes data from the National Assessment of Economic Education to investigate whether spending more on high school economics courses improves student performance measured by the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL). Delineates procedure. Results show direct allocation of resources produces improved student…

Recent results relating to the stability of scores on the Raven Progressive Matrices Test for different subgroups within and between the United Kingdom, United States, and other Western societies are summarized. Despite the continuous increase in scores over time, differences between socioeconomic and ethnic groups remain. (TJH)

Explores the structures and assumptions underlying changing conceptions of good schools. Three separate models of good schools (real estate, accrediting agency, and value-added) are examined to provide insight into the fate of urban education, the wisdom of national assessment, and the crisis in U.S. education. (SLD)

Over the last fifteen years, many states have implemented high-stakes tests as part of an effort to strengthen accountability for schools, teachers, and students. Predictably, there has been vigorous disagreement regarding the contributions of such policies to increasing test scores and, more importantly, to improving student learning. A recent…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 calls for improving test scores of minority students in third through eighth grades, making middle level schools a key venue for closing the racial gap in achievement. This study, by analyzing data on the 15,000 eighth graders who took the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics,…

Reviews literature assessing research about the teaching and learning of high school economics. Examines how student learning has been measured using results from the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL). Considers research design and two models for assessing learning and findings. Concludes standardized test scores do not reveal differences among…