Thus, the best way to achieve educational improvement and student success is to pair the issue of standardized testing together with other teacher-based assessments. Standardized testing should remain a focus of the educational realm for administrative purposes, such as planning standards and curriculum. In order to determine whether a student is ready to advance, however, teachers should make recommendations to their administrations, citing evidence. By opening this recommendation process

"One problem with achievement testing is that a few minutes of performance time can end up directing a young child's entire educational career." (Schmitz 1991) When tests are administered to young children that take extended periods of time to complete, such as those which take six to eight hours with only short bathroom breaks, the child's naturally shorter attention span may affect performance on the tests. Many test makers

OCR recognizes that colleges and universities are under a lot of legal and political pressure to stop using racial and ethnic factors in admission," Clegg commented. "[In response,] the agency wants to intimidate colleges and universities to continue using these preferences." (Black Issues in Higher Education, 1999) The National Association of Scholars, while raising doubts about the reasoning behind the OCR document titled "Nondiscrimination in High-Stakes Testing," pointed to what it

Student Assessment What is the most appropriate way to assess student achievement? The commission of the National Middle School Assessment of student achievement suggests "authentic assessment refers to evaluation that makes use of real life tasks instead of contrived test items." (NMSA, 2000) In other words, rather than focus on testing students more, a greater interest and study of effective teaching practices are better employed in further research regarding education.

This helps them deal with administrative tasks such as applying for grants, reporting their progress, appeasing parents, etc. In addition, teacher-based methods of assessment have at least one positive implication for students. According to Flood et al., teacher-based assessments allow teachers to enter the process of scaffolding with significant foreknowledge. Flood et al. (2003). suggests that all good assessment includes a component in which a teacher plans and sets

Abstract The relevance of having in place standards of fair testing practices cannot be overstated. This is more so the case when it comes to highlighting and clearly outlining the obligations of those who either construct tests or formulate testing program policies and those who us tests. It is important to note that the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education comes in handy for tests developed professionally such as the