The Assessment of Basic Language
and Learning Skills (ABLLS)
An invaluable resource, the ABLLS manual contains an actual
assessment (protocol) that identifies a young learner’s skills and
deficits. The initial scoring allows you to systematically
determine intervention priorities and establish an individualized
curriculum for each child. The second part of this two part
package contains the ABLLS Scoring Instructions and IEP
Development Guide. Once the assessment is complete, it can be used
to outline an IEP and develop a baseline for working with children
at their skill level. *Note that this is a 2 booklet set that
comes with one protocol already included. Price: 59.95 USD; Soft
Cover, 2 Volume Set by James W. Partington, PhD and Mark L.
When An Adult Took Standardized
Tests Forced on Kids - A longtime friend on the
school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that
few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state's
high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he'd
make his scores public.
Testing? YES! --
Standardized Testing? NO! - Here, in three short sentences, is why No
Child Left Behind is dumbing down America's kids: 1. Teachers always teach to
the test. 2. Under NCLB, the only tests that count are standardized and machine
scored rather than teacher created and scored. 3. Machines can't evaluate and
attach a number to complex thought processes, so complex thought processes don't
Assessment and Achievement - Few issues are hotter than
assessment—thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act and similar measures—but
few are more misunderstood. With the generous support of Software Technology
Inc., the editors at eSchool News have assembled a variety of news and
information as well as outside resources to help put assessment in clearer
perspective and to tie it more closely to its primary purpose—namely, better
test scores through improved instruction.
Test Scored Fuel Laptop Debate -
Eighth-graders' scores on Maine's most recent annual achievement test are
refueling the debate over that state's groundbreaking effort to give laptop
computers to students. Middle-school students who used laptops for two years
performed about the same on a standardized test as students in the past who
did not have access to computers, the results indicate--though
laptop-equipped students did show gains in writing.
Testing Companies Mine for Gold -
There has been little public outcry over the fact that private,
multinational companies operating beyond public oversight are
determining which students, schools, and districts in the United
States are deemed "failures" and which are deemed "successes." Given
the secrecy that shrouds testing company operations, information is
negligible. What the public doesn't know, the public doesn't complain
Read the article "Schools:
Many who failed MCAS quit" - Boston
school officials announced findings yesterday that a significant
number of the students in the Class of 2003 who failed the high-stakes
MCAS exam in the spring of 2001 and who did not take the retest in
December of 2001 have dropped out of high school.
TestPrepReview - TestPrepReview.com is a free service "created
to provide free practice test questions for students in a variety of
career situations." Includes online review for ACT, SAT, GED, LSAT,
GMAT, MCAT, ParaPro, Nursing, and many more.
The 500-Pound Gorilla
- Privatizing education is predicated on an almost childlike
faith in competition:let self-interested
people struggle against one another, and somehow all of them -- even
their children, presumably -- will benefit. It is closely related to a
second ideological underpinning: a pronounced individualism in which
there is no us, just you and her and him and me. Perhaps it was the
implications of this threat to the value of community that led the
political philosopher Benjamin Barber to observe, "Privatization is
not about limiting government; it is about terminating democracy."
Low Income & Low Test Scores Linked in Colorado - Students from Colorado's poorest fami