Assistance offered by the State Department of Education to school districts in Oregon to help them identify aspects of student achievement under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (Hawkins Stafford Amendments of 1988) is discussed. Two hundred ninety-five of the 297 Oregon public school districts have Chapter 1 programs,…

The use of performance based evaluation on a national scale with 7-year-olds in the United Kingdom is described, and the impact of national assessment on teaching practice and implications of this type of assessment are considered. The national assessment program in the United Kingdom started in earnest in 1991 when all 7-year-olds were assessed…

The purpose and results of the state testing programs in Utah are described. At present there are seven major assessment programs conducted under the leadership of the Utah State Office of Education. These include the three components of the Core Assessment Program: Criterion-Referenced Tests and item pools, Writing Assessment, and the new…

Fulfilling a legislative mandate in 1984, Connecticut established mastery tests in mathematics and language arts (listening, reading, and writing skills) for grades 4, 6, and 8. Criterion-referenced tests were considered most appropriate for assessing achievement and determining individual remediation needs. The Grade 8 Mastery Test results for…

This paper analyzes 19 studies that were considered by the National Institute of Education's panel on the effects of school desegregation in order to determine desegregation's effect on black achievement, black self-esteem, and racial relations. It is stated that, overall, the results show that reading achievement improves somewhat as a result of…

Intended both to evaluate the California testing program's success in assessing student achievement in the basic skills and to suggest possible improvements in the program, this report includes an executive summary evaluating current testing procedures, describing experimental studies on new ways of testing and reporting testing information, and…

Researchers analyzed information from student records and student organizations to determine the academic success, dropout, and graduation rates of Alaska Natives at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF) throughout the late 1970's. Perhaps due to political, social, and policy changes, Native student success peaked in the early 1970's and…

The passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 established foreign languages as a core curricular area. Nonetheless, educational policymakers at the state and local levels often opt to allocate greater resources and give instructional priority to content areas in which students, and ultimately the school systems themselves, are held…

American school officials almost invariably compare local and national achievement through one of the following norm-referenced tests: (1) the California Achievement Test; (2) the Stanford Achievement Test; (3) the Metropolitan Achievement Test; (4) the Science Research Associates Test; (5) the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills; and (6) the Iowa…

The evaluation process and results of the 1989-1990 secondary school (grades 6 through 12) English language arts program of the Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District are presented. This evaluation gathers, focuses, and communicates information that is useful for continuously monitoring the quality of the language arts program.…

Three articles on current research in testing are presented. The first article, "Testing in the Schools", discusses the role of testing in educational reform. In the 1980s, the overwhelming purpose of state standardized testing has become promoting accountability in areas of: (1) monitoring; (2) gatekeeping; (3) remediation; and (4)…

A study was conducted of the entry-level basic skills performance of all credit students enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC) in fall 1989. The study examined demographic data and scores on the Comparative Guidance and Placement (CGP) Program Test, American College Testing (ACT) program exam, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Florida…

In September 1990, a study was conducted of the performance on basic skills examinations of first-time-in-college degree-seeking students who entered Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC) during fall term 1990. The study examined placement results on the Computerized Placement Test (CPT) and the Florida Multiple Assessment Programs and Services…

In September 1984, the Chinese government asked the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank to assist the officials of the Chinese Ministry of Education in thinking through some policy options for examinations and standardized testing. This document summarizes the descriptions of testing programs and advice provided to these Chinese…

The Standardized Tests of Achievement for Fiji (STAFs) were developed to measure skills and concepts of curriculum subjects for elementary schools. Two parallel tests were issued in early 1980 for Class-6 subjects (students in grade 6 of Fiji primary schools): (1) English Reading Comprehension; (2) English Listening Comprehension; (3) English…