On the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments, the attainment of performance level 4 is intended to indicate college readiness or being "on track" to college and career readiness. Students who achieve Level 4 should have a 0.75 probability of attaining at least a C in entry-level,…

Balanced literacy has been proposed as a compromise or middle ground between philosophical approaches to reading instruction that stress teaching of word recognition and those that stress construction of meaning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the READ 180 balanced literacy supplementary instruction program on…

The first operational administration of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) took place during the 2014-2015 school year. In addition to the traditional paper-and-pencil format, the assessments were available for administration on a variety of electronic devices, including desktop computers, laptop computers,…

To investigate possible iPad related mode effect, we tested 403 8th graders in Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey under three mode conditions through random assignment: a desktop computer, an iPad alone, and an iPad with an external keyboard. All students had used an iPad or computer for six months or longer. The 2-hour test included reading, math,…

This study examines the value of a professional collaborative partnership between college faculty and middle school teachers in improving students' literacy skills and teachers' instructional practice. Three college faculty and two middle school teachers engaged in a collaborative effort to design and implement evidence-based strategies to promote…

This paper examines current practices in implementing a Response to Intervention (RtI) in diagnosing specific learning disabilities. The use of the aptitude achievement discrepancy model, RtI model or a combination is reviewed. A survey of special education administrators in New Jersey compares methods of identification and consistency of…

As part of state transitions to college- and career-ready (CCR) standards, including the Common Core State Standards in more than 40 states (NGA & CCSSO, 2010), states are for the first time administering new summative assessments aligned to those standards and aiming for a higher bar in assessment quality. For a majority of states, this means…

This study investigates the benefits of no-stakes educational testing during students' summer vacation as a strategy to mitigate summer learning loss. Fifty-one students in Grades 3-8 from the Every Child Valued (ECV) and Lawrence Community Center (LCC) summer programs in Lawrenceville, NJ, took short, online assessments throughout the summer,…

"The Right Trajectory" brings to the forefront an often-overlooked voice in the debate about new state assessments developed in consortia: that of the best teachers in the country. This research suggests, despite challenges still to overcome, that these front-line experts believe that the new consortia tests are an improvement on the…

Every year 1.3 million U.S. high school students drop out of school with one quarter of female students failing to graduate on time. Female dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, to earn less when they are employed, to become pregnant before the age of 20, to become obese, to smoke, and to drink more heavily than their male counterparts. This…

This study examined the impact of a read-aloud accommodation on standardized test scores of reading comprehension at Grades 4 and 8. Under a repeated measures design, students with and without reading-based learning disabilities took both a standard administration and a read-aloud administration of a reading comprehension test. Results show that…

The goals of this study were to (a) develop an empirically based model regarding the development of fluent and automatic reading in the early elementary school years and (b) determine whether fluent text-reading skills provided benefits for reading comprehension beyond those accounted for by fluent word decoding. First-, second-, and third-grade…

The purpose of this study is to provide information on actual time used by students with disabilities on the new SAT®. This study observed students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) as they took SAT items under strict time limits and recorded the amount of time taken for each item. The study is…

This Technical Report provides descriptions and summary data that assist measurement specialists in assessing the procedures used in developing New Jersey's High School Proficiency Test (HSPT), the technical qualities of the tests, and the statewide results obtained from its use. The data summarized in this report were collected during the various…

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…