Suggests that members of the educational measurement community are at least in part responsible for the fact that many U.S. children are receiving a reduced quality education because of the increasing misuse of educational tests. Assessment personnel have failed to speak out against the use of tests to assess school quality. (SLD)

Discusses the direction large-scale educational testing is heading, pointing out pitfalls in current and future use of such tests. The large-scale assessment community seems to be unconcerned about the central mission of education, the instruction of children. (SLD)

Discusses appropriate ways to prepare students for performance assessments and proposes a list of six guidelines for teaching to performance assessments. The focus is on elementary and secondary education. It is believed that these guidelines will help balance the domain and sample problem. (SLD)

The concept of consequential validity wrongly links the idea of the consequences of test use with the idea of validity, widely held to be rooted in the accuracy of inferences drawn from examinees' test performances. The reification of consequential validity can distract from a needed clarity about test use consequences. (SLD)

Developers of high stakes criterion-referenced tests are urged to formulate test tasks so that efficient instruction can promote student mastery of the domain. Time-on-task has been promoted by instructional psychologists as preferable to test teaching. (DWH)

Test specifications need to take a middle road so that they are not so general that instructional targeting is impossible and not so specific that only unitary assessment targets are fostered. Using illustrative sample items provides a good means of communicating the items eligible to be tested. (SLD)

The instructional impact of criterion-referenced testing during the past three decades is reviewed, and a method of devising criterion-referenced tests is suggested that departs from the usual model. Adding verification along the lines of panel review that newly constructed test items do elicit appropriate information is suggested. (SLD)

Test developers have an obligation to create the most appropriate assessment instruments possible as L. J. Kilian argues, but whether they do or not, educators still are responsible for providing test preparation that is professionally ethical and educationally defensible. (SLD)

Current successes and failures in U.S. educational measurement are reviewed, focusing on criterion-referenced testing. Pluses and minuses are listed for the following: (1) the move toward authentic assessment; (2) the dominance of criterion-referenced assessment; and (3) item response theory applications. Each area is a double-edged sword. (SLD)