The belief that the achievement of students in the United States schools was falling behind other countries led politicians in the 1970s to instigate a minimum competency testing movement to reform our schools. States began to rely on tests of basic skills to ensure, in theory, that all students would learn at least the minimum needed to be a productive citizen (Amrein & Berliner). In 1983, the National Commission of Education

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Key political, or legal issues, changes in K-12 assessment goals A Statute of instructive practice within the K-12 cluster involves instruction, curriculum and assessment among students. In this case, alignment ensures that the three capacities coordinated with the same goal and strengthened instead of working at cross-purposes. An appraisal will also measure the success of what the students are being taught on whether their

No Child Left Behind When it was first initiated, the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to make schools accountable for the education of their students. This federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act was supposed to improve the quality of education for all children in the United States. This paper will show, however, that in many school districts, the No Child Left Behind Act has had the opposite effect. As

" In addition to the highly qualified mandates of NCLB there are also requirements to use research-based education practices over effective-based education practices. The different levels of ability combined with the various qualifiers of special education students present a difficulty in determining the best course of research-based learning. In addition the ability to track and report such learning becomes difficult at best, impossible at worst. The Issue Given the wide spectrum of students that

Impact on Equity One major point regarding equity as applied to performance-based assessment is made by Yale Professor Emeritus Edmund Gordon (Dietel, Herman and Knuth, 1991). "We begin with the conviction that it is desirable that attention be given to questions of equity early in the development of an assessment process rather than as an add-on near the end of such work....The task then is to find assessment probes (test items)

School Personnel Functions Personnel functions and their relationship to moving an instructional agenda forward Ultimately, a school's reputation lies in the hands of its teachers. Hiring, training, and retaining highly effective personnel to give instruction in the classroom must be the cornerstone of any effort to improve education at a school. Without good teachers to impart instruction, the best textbooks, goals, and procedures will not be meaningful. Teaching, however, is a skill