Background: College- and career-ready standards cite the "special place of argument writing" in preparing students to be college students, professionals, and engaged citizens in an information-rich society (NGA, 2010). To support these critical skills, the National Writing Project (NWP) developed the College, Career, and Community…

This study compared New American Schools (NAS) classrooms to non-NAS classrooms in the high poverty San Antonio, Texas, school district. NAS promoted whole-school reform to address lagging achievement and lackluster school reform attempts that produced little meaningful change. The study investigated whether NAS designs extended beyond changes in…

Examines how the New Milford (Connecticut) School District avoided failing accreditation by creating a plan to convert the deteriorating high school building into an intermediate school for grades four to six. Planning concerns and accomplishments are discussed, including overcoming parental objections, the importance of the cafeteria's location,…

The Florida Writing Assessment was implemented in grades 4, 8, and 10 in 1998 as required by the Florida legislature. The assessment is designed to measure students' proficiency in writing responses to assigned topics within a designated testing period. This report contains writing assessment results for the whole state, school districts, and…

The differential effects of two different types of problem-solving training on the problem-solving abilities of gifted fourth graders were studied. Two successive classes of gifted fourth graders from Weslaco Independent School District (Texas) were pretested with the Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) and Thinking Creatively With Pictures…

In 1998, fourth graders participated in the mathematics component of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for the second year. A study of the results was conducted to determine which districts and schools had more students meeting the state's mathematics standards and how improved achievement came about. Data was gathered through…

This study examined irregularities in reading comprehension (RC) test results at both the individual and aggregate levels, focusing on the effect of test speededness on test scores. Data were taken from results of the Stanford Achievement Test--Seventh Edition (SAT/7), administered during April of 1983 to about 50,000 Palm Beach County (Florida)…

During the course of a large-scale study of teacher preparation for standardized tests in two low-stakes school districts, the question of whether the attitudes of teachers about standardized tests are a factor in their administration of mandated standardized tests in the classroom was addressed. Third-, fourth-, and sixth-grade teachers (n=178)…

A study involving all students taking the California Achievement Test (CAT) in the Cleveland City School District (Ohio) during the fall of 1989 was conducted to assess the effects of the use of parallel test forms. Each spring, all students in grades 4, 6, and 8 are selected to take the appropriate level of the CAT reading test, Form E. As a…

An assessment of the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) City-Wide Testing Program is presented to determine the effects of using customized achievement tests to achieve multiple purposes. The tests are derived from, or related to, the tests in a nationally standardized test battery, but include items written specifically to measure the local curriculum.…

This study assesses whether or not there is a significant difference in school climate, as reported by students' affective attitudes, toward curriculum and instruction for a cohort from one academic year to the next when intervention programs have been introduced. In the fall of 1989, the Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools…

The Cheyenne Mountain Schools, a small suburban school district in Colorado Springs, Colorado, used the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data to compare the mathematics achievement of its nine-year-old pupils with pupils of the same age living in similar communities across the United States. Working closely with NAEP personnel,…

Teacher testing-related attitudes and practices were explored in the context of court-ordered achievement testing in a school district engaged in desegregation. Responses to a mail survey (the Teacher Assessment Practices Questionnaire) from 79 teachers (grades 3, 4, and 5) across 13 elementary schools in a midwestern urban district suggest that…

This study investigated the "customization" of a standardized achievement test to measure the effect on group and individual scores. "Customization" refers to the modification of an existing test to more closely match test specifications of the entity using the test, usually a state or large school district. Results of an…

This paper presents a case study describing the collaboration between a state university, a local school district, and Dialog Information Services, Inc. that was designed to include the use of online searching in a social studies methodology course and to encourage school curriculum reform in the area of technology by integrating online searching…