Argues that the results of College Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests, nationally recognized, high-quality examinations conventionally used to award college credits, should be included in students' grade point averages. This would provide important information to graduate schools. Regents College (New York) has adopted a procedure for…

Examination of the history of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) program and the College Board can inform the current debate about testing by shedding light on admission and access issues that have been addressed by the program over the years. It has strived to balance consistency with the flexibility to adapt testing to new knowledge about…

Argues against the current penchant for national testing. Argues against the notion that national tests will turn unfit teachers into fit ones. Notes that parents do not send the schools standardized children and that standardized tests are not what will make a nonreader into a reader. Argues that many good books are ruined by prematurely forcing…

Responds to a critique by Susan S. Goldsmith of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English Language Arts tests, focusing on Goldsmith's critique of test development, uniform topic focus, use of open-response items, and lack of explicit testing in vocabulary and grammar. Goldsmith replies to the response, highlighting needed…

Suggests that many of the current instructional practices that use children's literature in the elementary classroom derive from "modernist" theories of meaning, readers, texts, and contexts which do not reflect the transactional nature of reading, perspectives from reader response, or various critical theories. Describes three theoretical…

Examines differences between old state-designed norm-referenced tests and new tests aligned with the curriculum. Concludes that new state tests are very similar to old ones. Discusses impact of new high-stakes standardized tests on students and teachers. Argues the new wave of standardized testing is not the answer to improving student…

Suggests that faculty suspects that assessment will only confirm that many students have problems with college level learning. Views assessment as part of the learning enterprise, a way of helping greater proportions of students succeed academically, and a source of information needed to meet diverse student abilities, backgrounds, and interests.…

Summarizes educators' and researchers' concerns regarding the use and misuse of standardized reading tests. Suggests a different model for reading assessment. (RS)

In the absence of national standards, we have evolved a haphazard, accidental, disconnected national curriculum based on mass-market textbooks and standardized, multiple-choice tests. This article explains former Education Secretary Lamar Alexander's efforts to ameliorate this situation by promoting America 2000, establishing the National Council…

The structure, level, and contents of four categories of final examinations, including the three-Point, four-Point, and five-Point Bagrut exams, are discussed. Possible reasons are offered for why some students take higher level examinations than those for which they are prepared. (LB)

An Ohio school board member contends that standardized tests wrongly assume a standardized test-taking population and that legislatures and others believe education is not successful unless students pass tests. Believes the goal should be to help all students perform up to their own potential and to instill in children a love of learning. (MLF)

Two differing opinions about the value of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in college admissions address these topics: over-reliance on the test as a predictor of student success; omission of some students' scores from institutional profiles; effects of abolition of the test; and admissions officer understanding of psychometrics. (Author/MSE)

Reviews Leo Goldman's (1972) assertion of failed relationship between tests and counseling. Reviews seven suggestions made by Goldman to remedy situation and considers how they have affected the relationship between tests and counseling. Concludes that relationship remains intact, chiefly in the field of career counseling. (NB)

Responds to Goldman's (1972) article asserting failed relationship between tests and counseling. Describes basis for renewed relationship between tests and career counseling. Reviews reasons Goldman cited for failed testing-counseling relationship, then focuses on two of Goldman's major themes: problems with selection-oriented, prediction models…

Describes the whole language "way of being" from the perspective of a department chair teaching remedial 9th-grade and honors 12th-grade students. Considers how whole language fits into standardized testing programs, what students take away from whole language, what its general characteristics are, and how it fits with student learning patterns…