Assessment & Early Intervention
This page in the Early Childhood Community provides resources to help educators to assess students for early intervention services for disabilities or "at-risk" home situations.

Assessment
This page in the IEP section of the Special Education Community offers information about various measures used in developing students IEPs.

Cautions Issued About High-Stakes Tests
With the growing use of high-stakes tests, the American Educational Research Association is recommending that school district leaders and policy makers take a close look at the organization's guidelines before linking school reform to test scores. The guidelines are AERA's effort to prevent such tests from harming students.

Do Schools Give 'Equal Grades for Equal Work'?
When is a B really an A? When you live in a school district with high academic standards and tough grading policies, according to some Connecticut parents who want their kids to get more A's. Those parents blame the school district's high standards for their students' low grades! Included: An Education World poll of school administrators across the country.

What Do Tests Test? --- A Commentary by Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs professor in cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the "father" of multiple intelligences theory, weighs in on the issue of high-stakes testing in this commentary. "We must proceed cautiously before we place students' minds and hearts at risk with tests of dubious quality whose meaning can be over-interpreted and whose consequences can be devastating," writes Gardner.

Creating Rubrics: Tools You Can Use
"But I worked all night on that report! How could you give me a D?" Rubrics provide teachers with an objective method for evaluating skills that don't lend themselves to objective assessment methods and they help answer the age-old question, "What did I do to deserve *this* grade?" Learn how rubrics can guide your students and support your assessments. Included: Three online tools for creating rubrics.

How Important Should One Test Be?
Education World continues its series on high-stakes testing today. What do the experts, national teacher organizations, and presidential candidates have to say about these tests?

Some Teachers, Students, Parents Say No to Tests!
Today, Education World's "Are High-Stakes Tests the Answer?" series continues as we examine the backlash against high-stakes testing. Across the nation, a growing number of parents, teachers, students, and organizations are questioning the tests' merits.

High-Stakes Tests Punishing Some Students?
Can high-stakes tests cure what ails education? Today, Education World explores the issue of high-stakes testing. We examine whether the tests hurt some students, especially English-learning, low-income, and learning-disabled students.

Teachers Learn from Looking Together at Student Work
School reformers say the way to improve education and accountability is by improving the way teachers and students look at student work. Today, Education World examines two collaborative approaches that teachers are using to look at student work. Included: Tips for looking at student work.

Should Standardized Tests Determine Who Is Held Back?
High-stakes testing in Louisiana will affect about one-third of the fourth- and eighth-grade students. Those students flunked math and reading tests in March and may be kept back this year unless they attend summer school and pass a second test in July.

Student Report Cards: Do They Earn an A -- or a "Needs Improvement?"
On its surface, the question of report card reform in the elementary grades is a simple one: What format will provide the best information about a student's progress? But for educators the answers are seldom easy. And for parents, anxious to see their children succeed in an increasingly competitive society, the correct answers are crucial.

Assessment Reform: Are We Making Progress?
Education World offers a brief summary of findings from a recently released study of assessment reform. Is assessment reform working? How are teachers handling new approaches to assessment? Are students and curriculum benefiting from new assessment methods approaches?

Setting Standards in Our Schools: What Can We Expect?
President Bill Clinton has called for national education standards and voluntary achievement testing. Read about the past, present, and future search for effective educational standards.

National Testing: Prepare for a Battle
President Clinton's plan for national testing is under attack from both sides. Clinton and Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley are defending their plan.

Close-Up: Voluntary National Tests
A close-up examination of the reasoning behind the plan to introduce voluntary national tests of reading and mathematics in America's schools in March 1999.

The Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project: Project-Based Learning With Multimedia
The Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project is an innovative approach to learning and assessment in which students research, design, and create a multimedia project. The site offers support resources for starting such a program and includes assessment rubrics, curriculum activities, technical guides, and project examples.

Coalition of Essential Schools
Coalition of Essential Schools is a growing network of more than 1,000 schools in 38 states that are implementing community-based school reform centered around rethinking the schools' priorities and redesigning curriculum, assessments, and instruction to be more student centered. The site offers a large library of materials, lists of participating schools, and information on projects and research.

Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
This is the Web site from the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).

Educational Testing
This Web site has information on the AP(r), GMAT(r), GRE(r), LSAT(r), PRAXIS, SAT(r) and the TOEFL(r) examinations.

• Assessment and National Testing

• Education Standards & Testing
  
• Education Standards & Testing : Evaluation Tools

The Digital Portfolio: A Richer Picture of Student Performance
This is an electronic report on the Digital Portfolio Project from the Coalition of Essential Schools. Here you'll find information on the project, case studies, and information and tips on implementing digital portfolio assessment programs.

ERIC AE
A clearinghouse for assessment, evaluation, and research resources.

ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library
This is the place to go to do research on the subject of assessment. It's easy to navigate and covers a very broad spectrum on the subject.

The Portfolio and Its Use: Developmentally Appropriate Assessment of Young Children
An ERIC Digest

Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation (PARE)
Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation (PARE) is an on-line journal published by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation (ERIC/AE) and the Department of Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation at the University of Maryland, College Park. Its purpose is to provide education professionals access to refereed articles that can have a positive impact on assessment, research, evaluation, and teaching practice, especially at the local education agency (LEA) level.

Improving Performance Assessment Newsletter
The Newsletter of the State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards Technical Guidelines for Performance Assessment Consortium Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington, D.C.

Performance Assessment Links in Science (PALS)
PALS is an on-line, standards-based, continually updated resource bank of science performance assessment tasks indexed via the National Science Education Standards (NSES). The tasks can also be indexed via other frameworks such as local, customized standards.

Dr. Helen Barrett's favorite links on Alternative Assessment & Electronic Portfolios
This is an excellent list of resources for delving into alternative assessment on the internet.