The General Accounting Office (GAO), at the request of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education, conducted studies on the extent and cost of testing in the United States, the experience of Canada in testing, and initial efforts to set standards for judging student performance on…

SpringBoard is a program in Mathematics and English Language Arts for students in grades 6 through 12. The College Board first began work on developing rigorous instructional content and assessments in the early 1990s through a program called Pacesetter. While the original focus of Pacesetter was 4th year high school courses, Pacesetter users…

The report presents a summary assessment of knowledge about traditional Western forms of art among 9-year-old, 13-year-old, and 17-year-old students. Part of national information gathering project related to educational achievement in various learning areas, the report is presented in three chapters. Chapter I examines instruments used to measure…

Reveals that teacher expertise, facility condition, and instructional materials affect Kenyan primary school quality, indicated by student performance on the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE). Finds these factors produce higher CPE scores among urban students. Compares two rural districts, Nyeri and Bungoma. Ties Nyeri's students' higher CPE…

Extensive public concern about the deficiency in basic skills confirmed by a decline in standardized test scores and widespread implementation of a variety of state and local improvement programs indicates an urgent need for national attention to this timely issue. However, a federal testing program or federally-imposed performance standards are…

Group differences among ethnic and racial groups on a series of educational measures and outcomes are examined. African-American and Hispanic students perform substantially lower than white and Asian students on the SAT I. These substantial differences also exist on a variety of other admissions tests used for undergraduate, graduate, and…

This report presents results of a study addressing two questions: (1) the role of certificates, licenses, diplomas, and other creditials in a decentralized vocational education system of public and proprietary schools, community colleges, union apprenticeships, the military, and correspondence schools and (2) the role that certification can play…

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), standardized test scores are the indicator used to hold schools and school districts accountable for student achievement. Each state is responsible for constructing an accountability system, attaching consequences--or stakes--for student performance. The theory of action implied by this…

Less than one third of American eighth graders score in the two highest performance levels on the grade 8 mathematics test given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Only a little over one third of Massachusetts eighth graders score at the two highest performance levels on the state's own grade 8 mathematics test. In 2002, the…