Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

Great things happen when students are able to focus on their learning instead of their scores. However, assessment reform, including standards-based grading, remains a hotly debated issue in education. "Going Gradeless" shows that it is possible to teach and assess without the stress of traditional grading practices. Sharing their…

Large scale assessment is conducted at different class levels for various purposes such as identifying student success in education, observing the impacts of educational reforms on student achievement, assessment, selection, and placement. It is expected that these tests and their items are used in education do not display different traits with…

What does "rigor," a word that frequently pops up in conversations about education, really mean? More specifically, what does it mean for "literacy" instruction, and how does it relate to challenging standards-based assessments? In this informative and practical guide, literacy expert Nancy Boyles uses the framework from Webb's…

The authors develop model analyses based on a U.S. Department of Education guide to illustrate procedures a State could use to compare and contrast school-level overall and English Learner accountability determinations for proficiency in reading/language arts under the options allowed by the Every Student Succeeds Act. As a technical reference,…

Writing is a demanding, multidimensional process that is, cognitively and socially, highly complex. Success in writing is vital to success in education and in the workforce. Writing is increasingly used to demonstrate learning through schooling and has the potential to contribute toward understanding and learning in the content areas. The project…

Alternatives to vertical scales are compared for measuring longitudinal academic growth and for producing school-level growth measures. The alternatives examined were empirical cross-grade regression, ordinary least squares and logistic regression, and multilevel models. The student data used for the comparisons were Arabic Grades 4 to 10 in…

Accountability in the nation's public schools has become a matter of considerable urgency since the 2001 amendment of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Under this most recent version of the ESEA, as of the 2007-08 academic year states and districts must assess the mathematics and reading proficiency of students…

While formal, standardized assessment instruments provide valuable and necessary information about students' various abilities and skills, the use of informal and qualitative assessment approaches has the benefit of leading directly to instruction based squarely on an individual student's needs, strengths, and existing skills. This article…

The compositions of sixth, tenth, and twelfth grade students were used to determine whether narrations or arguments of high syntactic complexity were rated higher than narrations or arguments of low syntactic complexity. Selection of the compositions was made in pairs--one of high syntactic complexity and one of low syntactic complexity--each…

As standardized tests receive more critical scrutiny and fall into more disfavor, members of the educational community search for alternative measures of assessing schooling and learning. If one of the goals of education in a democracy is to encourage students to express, develop and share ideas, the discussion setting is a logical arena in which…

The Utvardering genom uppfoljning (UGU) project was initiated in Sweden to follow individual students throughout their school career to understand their experiences and learnings during that time. Approximately 18,600 students from grades six and three comprised the survey population. This newsletter serves as an interim report highlighting key…

This "Summary Report" is the last report of the findings of the 1985 Manitoba Reading Assessment. The report contains a description of the study along with recommendations based upon teachers' and principals' opinions and the judgment of the Technical Advisory Committee. The purposes of the 1985 Reading Assessment were: (1) to provide…

Provides two examples of district-wide assessments from South Brunswick (NJ) schools in which library media specialists and teachers collaborate to make complex learning visible. Describes a sixth grade assessment that addresses library media skills and integrating research skills into the curriculum; and a freshman project that requires an…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2017), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.). Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the…