Updating her highly acclaimed book, Diane Ravitch presents the latest information on the debate over national standards and assessments. "Ensuring a rigorous liberal education for all is asking a lot in a contentious democracy like ours. Is it possible to educate every child to the same high standards? Is it politically feasible? Will raising standards help or hinder poor minority children? Ravitch sees where these land mines are buried and her book provides an indispensable diagram for getting around them."—The Wall Street Journal "A simple message lies at the heart of Diane Ravitch's new book.... If clear and consistent goals of learning could be set for all American children, rich and poor, gifted and ordinary, then all of these children would end up better educated than they now are likely to be."—The New York Times "No one could be more qualified to write a book about national standards in education than Diane Ravitch."—The Washington Times "The ongoing debate about national education standards and assessment in the U.S. has created as much confusion as it has solutions. What has been needed is an examination of the educational, historical, political, and social issues related to the development of such standards. Ravitch provides such a foundation."—Choice

This report presents the results of a workshop, held in Arlington, Virginia, on November 17-19, 1991, to discuss with the larger community the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) effort to develop strategies for assessing college student learning in support of National Education Goal Five, Objective Five which supports a substantial increase the proportion of college graduates who demonstrate advanced reasoning and communication skills. It is noted that of particular interest is the identification of the issues and concerns that NCES must consider in developing such an assessment process. The report begins with a brief description of the project goals and activities and is followed by a report of the workshop opening session and small group reports. Listed are the position papers by author and reviewers as well as general statements of the workshop participants. The general statements (individual comments) address what some participants would like to see as a user, what the most important next steps by NCES should be, what the major barriers and/or problems are that the NCES is likely to face, and who else should be consulted. (GLR)

The dramatic shift in the American labor market away from manufacturing and the growing gap in earnings between high school and college graduates have contributed to a sense of alarm about the capacity of the nation's schools to supply adequately skilled graduates to the work force. The role that schools can or should play in preparing people to enter the world of work is hotly debated. In an effort to nurture the important and ongoing national dialogue on these issues, the Board on Testing and Assessment asked researchers and policymakers to engage in an interdisciplinary review and discussion of available data and implications for assessment policy. Transitions in Work and Learning considers the role of assessment in facilitating improved labor market transitions and life-long learning of American workers. It addresses the apparent mismatch between skill requirements of high-performance workplaces and skills acquired by students in school, the validity of existing assessment technologies to determine skills and competencies of persons entering various occupations, and ethical and legal issues in the implementation of new testing and certification programs. The book also examines the role of assessment in determining needed skills; developing ongoing education and training; and providing information to employers, prospective workers, and schools.

The Second Edition of this handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the concept of accessibility and its application to the design and implementation of instruction and tests with all students. It updates and expands on its original contents and responds to the increasing demand for research-based evidence of accessible instruction and testing practices from the professional community. Chapters explore how outcomes are affected when essential features or components of instructional materials and tests are not accessible to any portion of the student population. The handbook addresses the new set of Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing that was published in 2014 as well as requirements for a high level of access for all interim and summative tests by national testing consortiums. In addition, the handbook describes how the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) has continued to advance Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in mainstream education with teachers of all types of students, not just students with disabilities. Topics featured in this text include: A summary of U.S. policies that support inclusive assessment for students with disabilities. An overview of international policies that support inclusive assessments. Designing, developing, and implementing an accessible computer-based national assessment system. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and the future of assessment. Recent advancements in the accessibility of digitally delivered educational assessments. The Handbook of Accessible Instruction and Testing Practices, Second Edition is an essential reference for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in education and allied disciplines, including child and school psychology; assessment, testing and evaluation; social work; and education policy and politics.

There seems to be no end to the flood of conferences, workshops, panel discussions, reports and research studies calling for change in the introductory science courses in our colleges and universities. But, there comes a time to move from criticism to action. In 1993, the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation called for proposals for systemic initiatives to change the way int- ductory chemistry is taught. One of the five awards was to design, develop and implement the peer-led Workshop, a new structure to help students learn science. This book is a study of 15 years of work by the Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) project, a national consortium of faculty, learning specialists and students. The authors have been in the thick of the action as project evaluator (Gafney) and co-principle investigator (Varma-Nelson). Readers of this book will find a story of successful change in educational practice, a story that continues today as new institutions, faculty, and disciplines adopt the PLTL model. They will learn the model in theory and in practice and the supporting data that encourage others to adopt and adapt PLTL to new sit- tions. Although the project has long since lost count of the number of implem- tations of the model, conservative estimates are that more than 100 community and four year colleges and a range of universities have adopted the PLTL model to advance student learning for more than 20,000 students in a variety of STEM disciplines.

This book offers a broad overview of many issues related to assessment in higher education, with specific application for understanding the impact of service-learning and civic engagement initiatives. This revised edition includes an additional chapter that explores recent changes in the assessment landscape and offers examples and resources for designing assessment strategies for community engagement in higher education. The original text includes narrative addressing assessment issues and strategies; a detailed discussion of learning from multiple research projects performed over the past two decades about impact on multiple constituencies –students, faculty, communities, and institutions; and a discussion of strategies for data collection, analysis, synthesis, and reporting. Specific assessment instruments for use with each constituency are provided, including suggestions for administration, preparation, and data analysis. This volume will be helpful for individuals seeking a comprehensive resource on assessment issues in higher education.