This paper presents a rationale for adopting the new form of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales for use with gifted children, based on its more recent norms, its factorial structure, its less restrictive emphasis on g-factor intelligence and verbal reasoning, and its evenness in content from one age to another. (JDD)

Criticizes calls for national competency testing for Canadian students. Argues that thinking skills are too complex, and standardized tests too simplistic, for such tests to be valuable. Points out that testing alone does not improve education. Examines why standardized tests are appealing. Concludes that the tests are useful if their limits are…

Presents examples of how standardized testing recognizes, constrains, or dismisses the multifaceted aspects of identities children bring to classrooms and influences the identities of teachers and psychologists whose actions are constrained by a culture that reproduces itself. Challenges readers to take up new models of assessment that not only…

Describes a Chinese school where staff assumed students would succeed notwithstanding their learning problems. Suggests prudence in use of labels for students. Questions use of standardized tests as the primary measure of students' attainment of standards, and advocates increased use of classroom-based strategies. Ponders difficult questions that…

Presents the responses of five people in the field of education (professors and assessment administrators) to the recently published position statement by the American Educational Research Association on high stakes testing in preK-12 education. The responses point out the contributions of this position statement and offer suggestions for…

Heather-Jane Robertson's "In Canada" column in the May 1999 "Kappan" demonstrated a wish to discredit an organization for ideological and personal reasons. Comments concerning the homogenization of curriculum and the impetus of the School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP) to standardized curriculum are pure hyperbole.…

The Scholastic Assessment Tests (SAT) measures students' general learned abilities, but student test performance is influenced as much by family environment as it is by formal education. Many colleges use SAT scores in admissions decisions. Students would be far better served if there was a concentration on other ways of predicting success in…

Hopes that all young people in schools might have English classes that teach them spelling, punctuation and correctness but also help them toward the personal discovery of the Word as an instrument of creation, a power that lies within all of them, a power that might save them. (SG)

Tries to clarify the ethics and pragmatics of test-based diploma denial by setting out and evaluating the two camps' positions. Notes the author's aims are taxonomic, hoping to organize a confusing array of arguments; and partisan, hoping to guide further action on these very significant debates, especially as they involve the practice of English…

New writing components in standardized tests can have negative impact on classroom writing skills. Some of the steps that an educator should take in order to improve writing instruction when a standardized test fails to address the needs of the students and schools are described.

First an overview is given about the actual national and international situation concerning standardized testing. Then two major reasons are presented why accountability systems based on standardized testing have become so widespread: (a) the missing validity and reliability of teachers' assessment of students' achievement, and (b) the important…

Despite widely-held beliefs to the contrary, three different sources of research data prove that children in the 1990s read better on the average than either their father's generation or their grandfather's generation. "Then and Now" studies indicate that students read better now than decades ago. Restandardization of test norms also…

The topic of this paper is the second of a two-faceted problem involving achievement testing in the United States. The first facet is the lack of correspondence between test content and intended student outcomes in school districts, and the second facet is "test score pollution." Test score pollution describes instances where test scores for a…

Most of the federal government's support of disadvantaged young children has come through Head Start and Chapter 1 programs. Chapter 1 has mainly been used for pull-out remedial reading and mathematics programs in the elementary grades. The National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE) is…

A key factor in the decline of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores (a factor that has been overlooked) is the concurrent decline in the availability of textbooks. The simultaneous decline of both SAT scores and textbooks suggests a strong cause-and-effect relationship. A recent study by the Ohio Education Association indicated that there are…