History Of Southwest Evaluation Association Assessment

The WIAT-III seems to be a reliable and valid academic achievement test; however, it is important to explore the feasibility of administering the test. The price of the WIAT-III is currently listed at $675.00; this price includes the components to administer and score the test (Burns, 2010). More expensive options are available that include the computer Scoring Assistant. The WIAT-III is more expensive than another achievement test labeled The Wide Range Achievement Test-IV. However, the Wide Range Achievement test is used more as an academic screener than a comprehensive achievement assessment (Burns, 2010). According to Burns (2010), the cost of the WIAT-III is one of the assessment’s main weaknesses. However, other achievement tests such

The Australian Psychological Association (APS) defines a psychological test as the measure of characteristics and abilities of an individual including aptitude and intelligence (“Australian Psychological Society: Psychological testing", 2016). As educators are increasingly building competence in psychological fields involving assessment properties, test administration, interpretation and statistics (Bowles et al., 2016), administration of tests such as the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), an annual assessment for students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 which utilises psychological principles is becoming more commonplace. Unlike psychological tests

The purpose of the NDEA was to improve and strengthen all levels of the American school system and to encourage students to continue their

At the middle school level, it is difficult to administer extensive interminable assessments, when you are trying to determine readability for over 100 students. Many middle school teachers rely on the NWEA/MAP assessment and “Standard of Learning” to provide them with their student’s Lexile levels and readability. The problem with using data from the NWEA/MAP assessment and SOL scores is that teachers only have data from the previous year and are unable to assess the factors that contributed to the students testing scores. A quick and easy assessment that can be given the first week of school, which takes 10 minutes or less and shows word recognition as well as readability is the San Diego Quick Assessment.

Currently, there are around 37 thousands schools in the United States. Each year, there are more than a million students that applying for college institutions (National Center for Educational Statistics). As an university admission office, it is often difficult to select students based on numbers and words that show up on their application without knowing the applicant. Since there are many factors and can impact a student’s high school experience and performance, it is unfair to be comparing every student in the United States with a same standard. In order to minimize these differences, standardized tests were invented along with the No Child Left Behind act in 2001 which enforced all students to participate. Ideally, standardized tests are objective and graded by computer. The test is expected to be evaluating all students with the same standards. While the educators and designers of the standardized tests focus on generating a test that allows them to compare all students fairly, they abandon the fact that all students’ resources and backgrounds are inevitably different. Assuming that all elements of an educational system serve to benefit students’ learnings, standardized testing is an inadequate method of evaluation due to its negative impact on students and teachers’ mindsets, inaccuracy in evaluation of students’ abilities, and the

The National Assessment of Education progress (NAEP), which is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas. (NAEP, n. d.)

The NCLB Act has become the largest intervention by the federal government. This act promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between the white students and students of color. The law is aimed at having standardized test to measure student performance and quality of teacher. The Standardized exams are fully focused on reading and mathematics. This law characterizes an unequalled extension of the federal role into the realm of local educational accountability. High school graduation rates are also a requirement as an indicator of performance at secondary level. In low performing schools they get punished by receiving less funds and students have the choice to move to high performing school. The quality of our

The ESEA Act of 1965 was enacted to offer equal educational opportunities to children from low income students with the help of Title 1 being the largest source of funding. With the help of Title 1 the schools would be able to provide supplemental services to these children. In Contrast, The NCLB Act requires states to use standardized test to test students in reading, math and science to see if academic progress is made and the students are proficient in grade level of these subjects. The NCLB Act also focused on eliminating socioeconomic and racial differences providing quality education to all students of America regardless of ethnic, socioeconomic and racial background. Whereas the ESEA Act only focused on low income family students, the NCLB Act included low- income students, students with disabilities, major racial and ethnic groups and English language learners by providing test results to show improvement and that each student reach the appropriate grade level performance. (Thomas & Brady, 2005, p. 51-56). Furthermore, A blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the ESEA differed by focusing on “moving from a punishment based system to a system that rewarded students and teachers for excellent teaching and student growth” (Woolfork, 2014, p.X). In Comparison, all of these educational policies have the same goal which is to improve the educational experience of students in all areas and populations. These policies help with the effectiveness of teaching learning

The uniqueness of the National Education Association is found in the fact that it is a near monopoly supplier of teachers to a government enforced monopoly consumer, the public schools. As the NEA has grown in power politically, it has also been able to govern the destiny of this

Federal involvement in education began in 1954 with the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which initiated federal funding to schools in the United States. NDEA marked the beginning of a long line of education policy bills over the course of more than forty years. No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, was not a novelty piece of legislation; its ancestry dated back to 1965 with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—a more descriptive mandate for the usage of federal funds and the requirements of schools in the United States (Anderson 3). Through Title 1 provisions, ESEA intended to alleviate the inequality in public schools by providing federal funding for schools in areas with high percentages of children

“No issue in the U.S. Education is more controversial than (standardized) testing. Some people view it as the linchpin of serious reform and improvement, others as a menace to quality teaching and learning” (Phelps). A tool that educators use to learn about students and their learning capabilities is the standardized test. Standardized tests are designed to give a common measure of a student’s performance. Popular tests include the SAT, IQ tests, Regents Exams, and the ACT. “Three kinds of standardized tests are used frequently in schools: achievement, diagnostic, and aptitude” (Woolfolk 550). Achievement tests can be used to help a teacher assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a

In the society of today, there are various educators who believe in assessment as proper method to measure the performance of a child in school as well as the overall achievement of a specific school system. The assessment may be presented in the form of verbal, written, or multiple choice, and it usually pertains to certain academic subjects in the school curriculum. Recently, many educators began to issue standardized tests to measure the intelligence of a common student body. (Rudner, 1989) These standardized tests were initially created to reveal the success in institutional school programs, and exhibit the abilities of students today. The standardized tests can reveal the strengths and weaknesses

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

All states are now required to set high standards in math and reading and to develop assessments that will measure progress by annually testing of all students in grades 3 through 8 in both math and reading. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), also known as "the Nation's Report Card," will be used to test a sample of students in each state as a validation of the of the state test results.

There are a variety of topics that are interesting in life. This interest may then become a point of inquisition, where an individual may formulate a relationship between two variables, which may or may not influence each other. Next, a hypothesis is formed and tested. In this same manner, a school educator was interested in determining the potential relationship between grade point average (GPA) and IQ scores among ninth graders. The educator random sampled 30 ninth graders, ages 14 years old and administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). This writer will be expanding further on this topic and will formulate the null and alternative hypothesis, describe the four scales of measurement, describe whether if there is a correlation significant (positive, negative, or no correlation) enough between both variables, describe the strength of the relationship, describe what the results reveals about the hypothesis, and what conclusions can be drawn from the results.