Fundamentals and Flaws of Standards-Based Testing: Lessons Learned Across Three Decades in Educational Assessment

When put to the test, will standards-based reporting remain as “fundamentally flawed” as once feared, or can next-generation approaches refine the system for the better? Fundamentals and Flaws of Standards-Based Testing offers an inside perspective on the technical challenges encountered during each phase of the assessment cycle. Careers in state testing are spent balancing technical, logistical, financial, political, psychological, sociocultural, emotional, and measurement considerations while keeping an eye on the educational goals of the state assessment program. This insightful and comprehensive book draws on measurement foundations and real-life experiences in state testing to discuss critical and still unresolved technical and policy challenges that are being inherited by today’s assessment specialists and psychometricians.

Going beyond core descriptions of psychometric and assessment development procedures and operational best practices in testing, this book exposes graduate students and scholars of educational measurement and policy as well as testing industry professionals to real-life pressures faced by those charged with designing, implementing, and maintaining a large-scale state assessment program. Standard-setting, test design, score reporting, validation, and more are approached critically and with authentic context.

Charlie DePascale is President of Psychometric Confections, LLC, and was Senior Associate at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment. He has acquired expertise in state assessment from testing company and public-sector perspectives.