Download or read book How the AIMS Test Missed the Mark What Every Parent and Educator Should Know about Testing written by Dianna Barra and published by . This book was released on 2004-11-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards was developed for the State of Arizona to be in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. It has been controversal since its introduction. However, not only is it disliked, but the validity of the test is in question for some of its current uses.
Download or read book What Every Parent Should Know About Schools Standards and High Stakes Tests written by Donna Walker Tileston and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2005-10-13 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Full of wonderful information, and very thought provoking!" -Susan E. Fisher, NBCT Douglas County School District, CO "Cuts through all the jargon." -Stephanie A. Slowik, NBCT, Nationally Certified School Counselor Wake County Public Schools, NC "Gives a better understanding of what the standards mean, what to do with the standards, and what to do if standards aren′t being met by a school." -Shannon Journell, Teacher Enon Elementary School, OH "Not only am I an educator, but I am also a single mom of two. I read this book from both perspectives and was enlightened by the information. Every parent should be aware of the information in it, especially those who move frequently." -Stacy Slomko, Teacher Perth Amboy High School, NJ The essential resource for parents who want to help their children succeed in school! Expert educator and award-winning author Donna Walker Tileston helps parents take the guesswork out of understanding educational standards, mandated tests, No Child Left Behind, and the myriad other issues affecting their children′s schools today. Within this concise, reader-friendly guide, parents will find a wealth of easy-to-understand information, including: How to understand and access local and national standards Five things parents can do to improve standards-based teaching and testing Ten guides to asking the right questions at open-school events and parent-teacher conferences Three ways to help children master high stakes tests What to do if schools don′t achieve adequate yearly progress A glossary that defines the buzzwords that mystify non-educators With this one handy guide, all parents can become active, informed, and involved participants in their children′s education.
Download or read book The Ambiguity of Teaching to the Test written by William A. Firestone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-04-12 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Testing is one of the most controversial of all state and federal educational policies. The effects of testing are quite ambiguous. The same test may lead to different consequences in different circumstances, and teachers may use very different strategies to prepare students for tests. Although most experts agree that mandatory testing leads to teaching to the test, they disagree about whether it leads to meaningless drill, wasted time, de-professionalizing teachers, and demotivating students, or to more challenging and thoughtful curricula, more engaging teaching, increased student motivation, and increased accountability. To help sort through this ambiguity and provide a firmer basis for decisions, The Ambiguity of Teaching to the Test: Standards, Assessment, and Educational Reform offers a hard look at the effects of state testing, and thoroughly examines the ambiguity of test preparation and how test preparation practices are influenced by what teachers know and the leadership coming from the school and district. Drawing on data from a three-year study of New Jersey's testing policy in elementary mathematics and science, it helps to explain the variety of ways that teachers modify their teaching in response to state tests, raises important questions, and offers useful guidance on how state policymakers and local and district school administrators can implement policies that will improve educational equity and performance for all students. It also offers an in-depth analysis of classroom practices that should inform teachers and teacher educators whose goal is to meaningfully implement conceptually based teaching practices. This comprehensive look at the statewide variation in testing practice features: *a data-based, non-ideological treatment of how testing affects teachers, in a field characterized by ideologically driven beliefs and by anecdotes; *an extensive and well-integrated combination of qualitative and quantitative data sources that provide a statewide overview, as well as an in-depth analysis of teachers and classrooms; *a careful analysis of the variety of forms of teaching to the test; and *a multilevel exploration of how a variety of personal and leadership factors can influence teaching to the test. This is an important book for researchers, professionals, and students in educational testing, educational policy, educational administration, mathematics and science education, educational reform, and the politics and sociology of education. It will also prove useful for state policymakers, school and district leaders, and teacher educators and curriculum specialists who are making decisions about how to design and respond to new testing systems.
Download or read book High Stakes written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-01-16 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone is in favor of "high education standards" and "fair testing" of student achievement, but there is little agreement as to what these terms actually mean. High Stakes looks at how testing affects critical decisions for American students. As more and more tests are introduced into the country's schools, it becomes increasingly important to know how those tests are usedâ€"and misusedâ€"in assessing children's performance and achievements. High Stakes focuses on how testing is used in schools to make decisions about tracking and placement, promotion and retention, and awarding or withholding high school diplomas. This book sorts out the controversies that emerge when a test score can open or close gates on a student's educational pathway. The expert panel: Proposes how to judge the appropriateness of a test. Explores how to make tests reliable, valid, and fair. Puts forward strategies and practices to promote proper test use. Recommends how decisionmakers in education shouldâ€"and should notâ€"use test results. The book discusses common misuses of testing, their political and social context, what happens when test issues are taken to court, special student populations, social promotion, and more. High Stakes will be of interest to anyone concerned about the long-term implications for individual students of picking up that Number 2 pencil: policymakers, education administrators, test designers, teachers, and parents.
Download or read book The Truth About Testing written by W. James Popham and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2001-11-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With public and political demand for educational accountability never higher, educators are under enormous pressure to raise students' scores on standardized achievement tests. Policymakers are backing large-scale, high-stakes testing programs as the best way to determine which schools are failing and which schools are succeeding, and the only way to ensure the quality of students' schooling. Nonsense, says distinguished educator and author W. James Popham. In The Truth About Testing: An Educator's Call to Action, Popham explores both the absurdity and the serious destructive consequences of today's testing programs. He uses actual items drawn from current standardized achievement tests to show what these tests really measure and why they should never be used to evaluate school quality or teacher ability. But, Popham insists, there's a way out of this measurement mess. And it's up to educators to take the first steps. Throughout this commonsense and conversational resource, the author appeals to educators to build their own assessment literacy, spread the word about harmful testing, and reexamine how they use test data in the classroom. He provides * Advice for distinguishing between sound and unsound large-scale tests. * Guidelines to help teachers maximize the instructional benefits properly constructed classroom tests can bring. * Evidence-gathering strategies for teachers and administrators trying to survive and thrive in an accountability-driven environment. The book closes with a series of action items for educators interested in ending the score-boosting game, halting the erosion of educational quality, and establishing the kind of testing that can improve student learning. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.
Download or read book The Test written by Anya Kamenetz and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standardized assessments test our children, our teachers, our schools—and increasingly, our patience. Your child is more than a score. But in the last twenty years, schools have dramatically increased standardized testing, sacrificing hours of classroom time. What is the cost to students, teachers, and families? How do we preserve space for self-directed learning and development—especially when we still want all children to hit the mark? The Test explores all sides of this problem—where these tests came from, their limitations and flaws, and ultimately what parents, teachers, and concerned citizens can do. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it offers a glimpse into a future of better tests. With an expert’s depth, a writer’s flair, and a hacker’s creativity, Anya Kamenetz has written an essential book for any parent who has wondered: what do I do about all these tests?
Download or read book Flash Feedback Grades 6 12 written by Matthew Johnson and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beat burnout with time-saving best practices for feedback For ELA teachers, the danger of burnout is all too real. Inundated with seemingly insurmountable piles of papers to read, respond to, and grade, many teachers often find themselves struggling to balance differentiated, individualized feedback with the one resource they are already overextended on—time. Matthew Johnson offers classroom-tested solutions that not only alleviate the feedback-burnout cycle, but also lead to significant growth for students. These time-saving strategies built on best practices for feedback help to improve relationships, ignite motivation, and increase student ownership of learning. Flash Feedback also takes teachers to the next level of strategic feedback by sharing: How to craft effective, efficient, and more memorable feedback Strategies for scaffolding students through the meta-cognitive work necessary for real revision A plan for how to create a culture of feedback, including lessons for how to train students in meaningful peer response Downloadable online tools for teacher and student use Moving beyond the theory of working smarter, not harder, Flash Feedback works deeper by developing practices for teacher efficiency that also boost effectiveness by increasing students’ self-efficacy, improving the clarity of our messages, and ultimately creating a classroom centered around meaningful feedback.
Download or read book School Family and Community Partnerships written by Joyce L. Epstein and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2018-07-19 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.
Download or read book Uncommon Measures written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-11-30 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The issues surrounding the comparability of various tests used to assess performance in schools received broad public attention during congressional debate over the Voluntary National Tests proposed by President Clinton in his 1997 State of the Union Address. Proponents of Voluntary National Tests argue that there is no widely understood, challenging benchmark of individual student performance in 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics, thus the need for a new test. Opponents argue that a statistical linkage among tests already used by states and districts might provide the sort of comparability called for by the president's proposal. Public Law 105-78 requested that the National Research Council study whether an equivalency scale could be developed that would allow test scores from existing commercial tests and state assessments to be compared with each other and with the National Assessment of Education Progress. In this book, the committee reviewed research literature on the statistical and technical aspects of creating valid links between tests and how the content, use, and purposes of education testing in the United States influences the quality and meaning of those links. The book summarizes relevant prior linkage studies and presents a picture of the diversity of state testing programs. It also looks at the unique characteristics of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Uncommon Measures provides an answer to the question posed by Congress in Public Law 105-78, suggests criteria for evaluating the quality of linkages, and calls for further research to determine the level of precision needed to make inferences about linked tests. In arriving at its conclusions, the committee acknowledged that ultimately policymakers and educators must take responsibility for determining the degree of imprecision they are willing to tolerate in testing and linking. This book provides science-based information with which to make those decisions.
Download or read book The ABCs of Educational Testing written by W. James Popham and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2016-11-02 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amplify your assessment literacy. Formative, data-driven, high-stakes—we all know the buzzwords surrounding educational testing. But often times we shelve our understanding of these terms because we think they are overwhelmingly complex. After all, isn’t that why we have "experts" crafting assessments? Those who care about our schools and students—teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, citizens—will find The ABCs of Educational Testing the first accessible explanation of how and why having a fundamental understanding of educational testing is so important. Inappropriate tests are currently leading to harmful decision-making, and this book gives you everything you need to know to change that, including The purposes of tests The difference between and importance of reliability and validity How to build tests with fairness The importance of students’ affect Using a nontechnical and conversational approach, this book offers fundamental knowledge to free you from testing fogginess—all framed around practical actions you can take today to strengthen your assessment literacy for tomorrow.
Download or read book Embedding Questions written by Committee on Embedding Common Test Items in State and District Assessments and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-12-01 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy makers are caught between two powerful forces in relation to testing in America's schools. One is increased interest on the part of educators, reinforced by federal requirements, in developing tests that accurately reflect local educational standards and goals. The other is a strong push to gather information about the performance of students and schools relative to national and international standards and norms. The difficulty of achieving these two goals simultaneously is exacerbated by both the long-standing American tradition of local control of education and the growing public sentiment that students already take enough tests. Finding a solution to this dilemma has been the focus of numerous debates surrounding the Voluntary National Tests proposed by President Clinton in his 1997 State of the Union address. It was also the topic of a congressionally mandated 1998 National Research Council report (Uncommon Measures: Equivalence and Linkage Among Educational Tests), and was touched upon in a U.S. General Accounting Office report (Student Testing: Issues Related to Voluntary National Mathematics and Reading Tests). More recently, Congress asked the National Research Council to determine the technical feasibility, validity, and reliability of embedding test items from the National Assessment of Educational Progress or other tests in state and district assessments in 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics for the purpose of developing a valid measure of student achievement within states and districts and in terms of national performance standards or scales. This report is the response to that congressional mandate.
Download or read book Annual Editions Educational Psychology written by Kathleen M. Cauley and published by McGraw-Hill/Dushkin. This book was released on 2006-02 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Series (formerly known as McGraw-Hill/Dushkin), this twenty-first edition of ANNUAL EDITIONS: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY provides convenient, inexpensive access to current articles selected from the best of the public press. Organizational features include: an annotated listing of selected World Wide Web sites; an annotated table of contents; a topic guide; a general introduction; brief overviews for each section; a topical index; and an instructor's resource guide with testing materials. USING ANNUAL EDITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM is offered as a practical guide for instructors. ANNUAL EDITIONS titles are supported by our student website, www.mhcls.com/online.
Download or read book Assessment in Early Childhood Education written by Sue C. Wortham and published by Pearson. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Assessment courses in Early Childhood Education. One of the most accessible and practical textbooks available on assessing young children from infancy through age 8. It provides the full range of types of assessment and how, when, and why to use them. An excellent introduction to assessing young children, Assessment in Early Childhood Education continues with the inclusion of all types of assessments that can be used with infants and young children. Key changes and updates to this edition include: updated and streamlined figures, examples, and models of assessment that aid pre-service teachers to learn how to apply the principles of quality assessments; new activities at the end of the chapters provide opportunities for students to apply their own performance activities to demonstrate understanding of chapter contents; the effects of No Child Left Behind have been updated; newly revised information on children from diverse cultures and languages and children with disabilities has been added; and information on new and current trends toward accountability are discussed, as well as the impact of high-stakes testing.
Download or read book Testing in American Schools written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Unintended Consequences of High stakes Testing written by M. Gail Jones and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To understand how high-stakes accountability has influenced teaching and learning, this book looks at the consequences that high-stakes tests hold for students, teachers, administrators, and the public, and demonstrates the negative effects of such testing on nontested subjects, minority students, and students with special needs.
Download or read book The Myths of Standardized Tests written by Phillip Harris and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-01-16 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pundits, politicians, and business leaders continually make claims for what standardized tests can do, and those claims go largely unchallenged because they are in line with popular assumptions about what these tests can do, what the scores mean, and the psychology of human motivation. But what most of what these opinion leaders say-and the public believes-about standardized testing just isn't so. However, few members of the general public, not even concerned parents, have the time or the background to keep up with the latest findings of testing experts, psychometricians, and researchers. That's where The Myths of Standardized Tests comes in. In simple, accessible language, Harris, Smith, and Harris spell out the assumptions underlying standardized tests and point out what's true about them and what's just plain mythical. But they not only debunk common assumptions; they propose better ways to judge the success of our schools. They also offer readers suggestions for ways they can help reduce the burden of tests on their children. Appendixes offer readers contact information and suggestions for actions they can take to become part of the solution to the problem of overusing and misusing standardized tests.
Download or read book The Journal of Education written by and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 888 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
