I left off the NAEP in my last message, and didn't mean to exclude it. I do question its validity though, because although of the way students are chosen for the test. Proctors state is is a random sampling of students at the appropriate grade level from each school. However, personal experience in 3 states and 4 schools indicates otherwise. A completely random sampling of 8th grade and 12th grade students would NOT pull every child from my class of students with mental retaradation and autism (it was a small class, only 4), or have a test list comprised ONLY of ESOL students and special education students. Both have happened in schools that I have taught in. Magi Steven Greenstein wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but I'd correlate to the NAEP (National Association of Educational Progress) standards, which you can find here: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/frameworks.asp Those are the ones that educators typically rely on for the truest picture of progress, or lack of progress. When Texas, for example, claims that scores are rising, researchers compare students' results on Texas' test to their performance on NAEP for a clearer picture. It's also a great check for the impact of NCLB, because state standards and testing are likely to be biased to show improvement and NAEP isn't. -Steven _______________________________________________ Edu mailing list Edu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.looneylabs.com/mailman/listinfo/edu