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The objections of testing experts to standardized testing are evaluated. The report begins with a foreword by Chester E. Finn, Jr., followed by an executive summary and an introduction. Four case studies include: (1) experts' opposition to high-stakes testing in Texas; (2) in North Carolina; (3) concerns raised in connection with the National Assessment of Educational Progress; and (4) in connection with the Scholastic Assessment Tests. Eight alleged harms of standardized testing are: (1) test score inflation; (2) curriculum narrowing; (3) emphasis on lower-level thinking; (4) declining achievement; (5) harm to women and minorities; (6) expense; (7) over use compared to other countries; and (8) opposition from parents, students, and teachers. Each of the claims is examined in detail, and a rebuttal is offered for each. The conclusion offers two views of testing and learning. (Contains 139 endnotes.) (SLD)

For more than a year the 2.3 million member National Education Association (NEA) and the 900,000 member American Federation of Teachers (AFT) engaged in merger negotiations. The plan was to bring American teachers together in one union for collective bargaining, political action, and education policy. This report gives a detailed picture of the maneuvers by the union leaders and their opponents, and the final vote that rejected the proposal. The report includes: a history of the NEA and AFT--professionalism versus unionism; the negotiations--the meeting of the joint council; principles of unity--AFL-CIO affiliation, states' rights; the debate; the vote; and the future of the NEA. (SLD)

This booklet provides parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers with information about achievement testing which is relevant to their needs. The first section presents an overview of the current market for standardized achievement tests and provides key definitions, distinctions between ability and achievement testing, comparisons of norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, and standards-referenced testing, and examples of appropriate interpretations of norm-, criterion-, and standards-referenced test scores. The next section provides information on the most frequently-used standardized achievement tests: (1) California Achievement Test; (2) Stanford Achievement Test; (3) Metropolitan Achievement Test; (4) Iowa Tests of Basic Skills; (5) Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills; and (6) Terra Nova. The following section focuses on the uses and misuses of tests. This section describes how test information can be used by the various audiences, and summarizes cautionary information from professional guidelines and standards. The final section analyzes current issues and controversies in large-scale achievement testing and speculates about future trends and areas of concern. A section on "References and Resources" appears at the end and provides information that readers can use to contact test publishers and obtain test reviews and other information related to testing in U.S. schools. (Contains 12 figures, 3 tables, and 51 references.) (SLD)

This symposium report consists of a 22-page report by Breneman and Haarlow, followed by 28 pages containing separate commentaries by Robert M. Costrell, David H. Ponitz, and Laurence Steinberg, respectively. The report builds on earlier research into the costs of remedial education as it relates to the total higher education expenditures in the U.S. Data on the cost of remedial programs and the ages of students enrolled were requested from all 50 states. In addition site visits were made to five states (California, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, and Texas) as well as to the National Center for Development Education (NCDE) in Boone, North Carolina. This study supports the earlier estimate that remedial education costs public colleges and universities about $1 billion annually, or roughly 1 percent of the institutions' current revenues of $115 billion. The report's introduction includes a brief description of the terminology and a history of remedial education in the United States. Following is a discussion of the 50-state surveys of costs and enrollments. Next, data from the five state site visits are presented, as are the age distribution findings of the NCDE national study. Finally, the nature of remedial courses and remedial education faculty are discussed. (MAB)

The Fordham Foundation commissioned experts in each of the five core academic subjects (English, history, geography, mathematics, and science) to develop criteria for excellence and apply them to as many state standards as could be obtained. This summary report compiles the numerical scores and letter grades that each state earned in every subject. Policy makers, journalists, and concerned citizens can easily see a complete report card for their state. The report also presents some lessons from these findings. Some states did well in some subjects, but the main conclusion to be drawn from this study is that most of the states have a long way to go before their academic standards will be strong enough to bear the considerable burden now being placed on them. Their present weaknesses are great enough to be a grave threat to standards-based education reform. In every subject, the number of states receiving a "D" or an "F" outnumbered the number receiving an "A" or a "B." In English and history, only one state received an "A." When the data were aggregated, no state had an "A" average, and only Arizona, California, and Texas earned a "B" average. In every subject, at least one state published excellent standards, demonstrating that it can be done. The "Forum" section of the report contains commentaries on the standards movement by five eminent participators and observers: (1) Lynne Cheney; (2) Denis Doyle; (3) William Galston; (4) Will Marshall; and (5) Susan Traiman. One appendix contains the criteria for reviewing state standards, and the other contains the documents examined listed by state. (SLD)

Results are now available from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) with its 5 main components, 41 cooperating countries, over 500,000 participants, and coverage of the full spectrum of mathematics and science from grades 4 through 12. American educators, parents, and policy makers have found the results to be both startling and disturbing, especially because of the decline in relative standing of U.S. students as they progress from elementary school through high school. This report describes how the TIMSS was conducted and discusses some lessons learned about the bases of these differences. The TIMSS included five main components: (1) curriculum analyses; (2) achievement tests; (3) questionnaire surveys of students, teachers, and administrators; (4) case studies of subjects in the United States, Germany, and Japan; the working environment and training of teachers; methods for dealing with differences in ability; and the role of school in adolescents' lives; and (5) a video study of classroom lessons in the United States, Germany, and Japan. The reports by members of the TIMSS staff express extreme caution in coming to firm answers concerning the poor performance of U.S. students. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some comments about American students' performance. Possible explanations begin with the fragmented, and nonsequential curricula in the United States, and the school's emphasis on developing rules that are automatically applied to problems rather than understanding the basis for the rules. Other problems are the lack of clear and tough standards, the mind-set that academic success is mostly determined by family background rather than by hard work, the demands placed on teachers, and their relatively low status within American culture. Demographic factors play a role, as does the associated phenomenon of placing some students in less challenging curricula. (Contains 6 tables, 4 figures, and 12 references.) (SLD)

The state of education in the United States is examined by asking how much educational value schools add as children pass through them, and at what cost. This approach eases the problems that arise from differing background experiences as children start school. Issues related to academic achievement in the United States are studied through a comparison of school effects from members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Data from the most recent international surveys of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that among schools in comparable countries, those in the United States on average make the smallest year-to-year gains in academic achievement. The longer American students spend in school, the farther behind they fall. Yet, per-pupil expenditures in the United States are among the world's highest. Because they make the poorest progress and rank in the highest category of spending, U.S. schools, by nationally agreed on standards, are least productive among those in comparably economically advanced countries. In reading, mathematics, and science through eighth grade, U.S. schools rank last in four of five comparisons of achievement progress. However, per-student expenditures on U.S. primary and secondary schools were third highest among more than 20 advanced countries. Today, unlike the past, more secondary school students in comparable countries on average remain in school than students in the United States do, so their superior achievement gains do not depend on student selectivity or higher dropout rates. An appendix discusses value-added achievement comparisons. (Contains two tables and seven charts.) (SLD)

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fourth of these studies, focusing on state standards for mathematics. For this evaluation of mathematics standards, researchers developed nine criteria under the four areas of: clarity, content, reason, and negative qualities. These criteria were applied to the standards documents of 46 states and the District of Columbia, and standards for Japan were reviewed for comparison purposes. The remaining four states either had no standards or did not make current drafts available. Only three states received a grade of "A," and only nine received a grade of "B." More than half received either a "D" or an "F." The principal failures of these documents stem from the mathematical ignorance of the writers of the standards, sometimes compounded by carelessness and sometimes by a faulty educational ideology. The average mathematics teacher can be led to a better grasp of the material that should be taught and the way to teach it than the writers of the standards seem to believe. The Japanese standards document, exemplary in most respects, falls short in the category of reason. Notes are presented for each state and Japan. An appendix lists the documents reviewed. (Contains one table.) (SLD)

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fifth of these studies, focusing on state standards for science. Thirty-six states presented standards for evaluation. Some states were in the process of revising standards, while others simply had no standards to present. Evaluation was based on 25 criteria grouped into 5 major categories: (1) purpose, expectations and audience; (2) organization; (3) coverage and content; (4) quality; and (5) negative criteria. Six states earned an "A" (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, New Jersey, and Rhode Island). Seven others earned a "B." While more than a third of the states earned good grades, seven states earned "C"s, seven earned "D"s, and nine failed. The very universality of science should make the development of standards easier, since there are sound models in the United States and abroad to guide their development. The standards, or lack of standards, are analyzed individually for each state. (Contains six tables and three figures.) (SLD)

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the second of these studies, focusing on standards for history. After the controversy surrounding the proposed "national history standards" in 1994, history has become a subject with no generally accepted national standards. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia responded to the Foundation's request for documents outlining state history standards. Thirteen states had no standards at all for the teaching of history. Fifteen criteria were defined for the evaluation of the history standards, grouping them into the areas of: clarity, organization, historical soundness, historical content, and absence of manipulation. Only the standards in Virginia met all the criteria. Virginia's standards are clear, measurable, descriptive, demanding, and quite specific. Closely following Virginia are California, Texas, and Massachusetts, but then the quality of standards drops sharply. Barely a third of the jurisdictions reviewed received a grade of "C" or better. Most of the states have a long way to go in setting standards for the teaching of history. An appendix provides notes on each of the states, in alphabetical order. (Contains eight tables.) (SLD)

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the third of these studies, concentrating on geography, the core subject that has been the most neglected in the U.S. academic curriculum. Standards documents were solicited from all the states, and were submitted by 38 states and the District of Columbia. The evaluation first judged a state's standards against six general characteristics: clarity, specificity, balance of point of view, use of active verbs against which progress can be gauged, inclusion of benchmarks, and guidance to teachers. Evaluators then focused on the comprehensiveness and rigor with which a state's geography standards address key content knowledge and concepts central to a full understanding of geography. Of the 39 jurisdictions, only 3 received a grade of "A." These were headed by Colorado, with a perfect score, a state in which the standards present geography as an important and interesting field of study. Indiana and Texas also received an "A." Three states received a "B" (Michigan, New Hampshire, and West Virginia) and eight states and the District of Columbia received a "C." Six states were graded as "D," and the others failed the standards evaluation. The good news for educators is that geography has regained a place in the U.S. curriculum and is being taken seriously by a number of states. The bad news is that most current state standards for what students know and should be able to do are weak. State-by-state reports are given, including comments on the 12 states that received "incompletes" because of their lack of standards. Three appendixes contain a discussion of the methodology, the criteria and scoring instrument, and a 14-item bibliography. (Contains 1 map, 1 figure, and 5 tables.) (SLD)

A study developed criteria for judging state standards for the English language arts and reading and analyzed the 28 current standards documents. The criteria used for judging the standards relate to the purpose, audience, expectations, and assumptions of the standards documents; the organization of the standards; disciplinary coverage of the standards; quality of the standards; and anti-literary or anti-academic requirements or expectations. Results indicated: (1) a large number of states have mostly unmeasurable or barely measurable standards; (2) nine documents were rated only "to some extent" in the critical area of reading; (3) many omitted vocabulary development as a reading skill, or mandated a narrow or inadequate approach to it; (4) only 8 of the 28 documents analyzed accompanied the standards with a group of specific titles to illustrate the level of reading difficulty; and (5) a number of documents claimed all decisions about the content of the literature curriculum should remain in the hands of local school districts. Results also indicated two major problems in many of the standards: the "completely unrealistic" expectation that young students are capable of understanding not only the culture in which they live but many different cultures in the world; and attempts to teach students about the "nature of language" often end up stressing the variability and impermanence of the English language. Appendixes contain an explanation of each of the criteria; a discussion of how good standards differed from those needing improvement; an analysis of the standards of the New Standards Project; and ratings and analysis of 28 state standards documents.) (RS)