Standardized Testing Primer

Standardized Testing Primer
Author: Richard P. Phelps
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 082049741X

A glossary and bibliography are also provided, The Standardized Testing Primer is an ideal text for teaching this subject to undergraduate and graduate students."--Jacket.

Curriculum Based Assessment

Curriculum Based Assessment
Author: Charles H. Hargis
Publisher: Charles C Thomas Publisher
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0398075522

Professor Hargis has also drawn distinctions with some approaches to assessment that appear in name to be similar to the form of CBA that he advocates. It will be of interest to those professionals who work with children: teachers, special educators, counselors, social workers, and researchers."--Jacket.

Latin for Children, Primer C

Latin for Children, Primer C
Author: Aaron Larsen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005-06
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781600510120

The Latin for Children Primer C is the third and final text in the LFC series. Grammar training continues, and students are encouraged to do more reading in Latin by following along with a running story through the text. Each workbook text is engaging, incremental, creative. Exercises, tests, and a sizable and useful reference section are also included. Lessons include a plethora of mnemonic aids (songs, chants) that enable students to learn vocabulary and grammar with ease and delight.

Kill the Messenger

Kill the Messenger
Author: Richard P. Phelps
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 356
Release:
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781412827140

"Kill the Messenger describes the current debate, the players, their interests, and their positions. It explains and refutes many of the common criticisms of testing. It describes testing opponents' strategies, through case studies of Texas and the SAT. It illustrates the profound media bias against testing. It acknowledges testing's limitations, and suggests how it can be improved. It defends testing by comparing it with its alternatives. And finally, it outlines the consequences for America of losing the "war on standardized testing.""--BOOK JACKET.

Measuring Up

Measuring Up
Author: Daniel Koretz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2009-09-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674254988

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

Thinking in Systems

Thinking in Systems
Author: Donella Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2008-12-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1603581480

The classic book on systems thinking—with more than half a million copies sold worldwide! "This is a fabulous book... This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."—Forbes "Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."—Hunter Lovins In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet—Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.

An Education Research Primer

An Education Research Primer
Author: Patricia A. Lauer
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2006-03-31
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Produced by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), one of the nation’s foremost educational research and training organizations, An Education Research Primer gives educators a basic understanding of educational research, its guiding criteria, and its relevance to school-based decision-making. In clear and concise language the book summarizes the various types of educational research, explaining their diverse purposes and methods. For example, the difference between experimental research (studies involving control group trials) and descriptive research (based on descriptive information and relationships) is explained, including how each is designed to address different types of research questions, and why each might have different applications. The book also describes what’s involved in setting up a comparison control group and how some studies have randomized control groups while others do not. In addition, the book describes the different types of data collection methods used in research and how this can bear on the research findings.

Edspeak

Edspeak
Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416605754

Every profession has its own language. Education is no exception and like other professions, the language of education is often incomprehensible to those outside the field. This book is the author's attempt to explain in everyday language the esoteric terms, expressions, and buzzwords used in U.S. education today.--[from preface].

Beyond Test Scores

Beyond Test Scores
Author: Jack Schneider
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2017-08-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674976398

When it comes to sizing up America’s public schools, test scores are the go-to metric of state policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the “best” schools. Yet ample research indicates that standardized tests are a poor way to measure a school’s performance. It is time—indeed past time—to rethink this system, Jack Schneider says. Beyond Test Scores reframes current debates over school quality by offering new approaches to educational data that can push us past our unproductive fixation on test scores. Using the highly diverse urban school district of Somerville, Massachusetts, as a case study, Schneider and his research team developed a new framework to more fairly and comprehensively assess educational effectiveness. And by adopting a wide range of measures aligned with that framework, they were able to more accurately capture a broader array of school strengths and weaknesses. Their new data not only provided parents, educators, and administrators with a clearer picture of school performance, but also challenged misconceptions about what makes a good school. With better data, Schneider shows, stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels can undo the damage of present accountability systems and build greater capacity in our schools. Policy makers, administrators, and school leaders can better identify where assistance is needed. Educators can engage in more evidence-based decision making. And parents can make better-informed choices for their children. Perhaps most importantly, better data can facilitate communication among all these groups, allowing them to take collective action toward shared, concrete goals.