Joan Herman Discusses Atlanta Cheating Scandal

CRESST Co-Director (emeritus) Joan Herman was recently heard on the Marketplace program of American Public Media discussng the Atlanta cheating scandal. 

The story and broadcast are both availabile. 

AERA Honors Eva L. Baker with Award

The American Educational Research Association announced that CRESST Co-Director and UCLA Distinguished Research Professor Eva L. Baker is the recipient of this year's prestigious E.F. Lindquist Award. 

Named in honor of E.F. Lindquist, a pioneering scholar and researcher who co-founded the American College Testing Program (ACT), Professor Baker is being honored for her outstanding research in the field of testing and measurement. 

"The Lindquist Award is a very well deserved tribute to Professor Baker's extraordinary work," said Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, Dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. "I am incredibly proud to have Eva as a colleague and leader of a foremost research and development center."

A news release is available. 

Heritage to Share Knowledge at Washington DC Assessment Forum

Margaret Heritage, CRESST Assistant Director for Professional Development, is participating in a national forum on Monday, April 8th from 10: a.m. - 11:30 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time) to help answer questions about formative assessment.  

The Washington DC Forum, Formative Assessment: Hype or Hope, is co-sponsored by WestEd and the National Association of State Boards of Education. 

A complete agenda and list of participants is available. 

Impact Evaluation Shows Mixed Results

A new evaluation led by CRESST Senior Researcher Jia Wang found that the UCLA teacher education program IMPACT had mixed results.  

Teacher apprentices had a successful experience and often applied what they learned in the program to their teaching. But IMPACT did not significantly increase teacher content knowledge in math or science. Nor did the program produce significant changes in teacher instructional strategies, a key program goal.

The full evaluation is available on the CRESST web site as is a short summary.    

Mark Hansen Receives Dissertation Grant

CRESST Graduate Student Researcher Mark Hansen recently was awarded a highly selective National Science Foundation Grant for his dissertation Hierarchical Item Response Models for Cognitive Diagnosis. 

"This prestigious award will fund continued work that builds on Mark's innovative research in psychometrics and statistical modeling," said CRESST Co-Director Li Cai who is also Mark's advisor in the Social Research Methodology Division of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. 

Mark is co-author of several prominent CRESST reports, including a recent evaluation of Green Dot's Locke Transformation Project. "Mark's work has important implications for data analysis and practice in educational testing, psychological assessment, and health-related outcomes," added Professor Cai. 

NEWS - CRESST and Smarter Balanced

On Wednesday, March 20th, the Chief State School Officers from the governing states of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium approved a motion to authorize Smarter Balanced leadership to begin negotiations toward establishing a long-term affiliation with CRESST. Subject to successful negotiations and approval of the governing states, Smarter Balanced would become a semi-autonomous membership organization with an institutional home at UCLA in order to provide service to its member states.

CRESST maintains an unwavering mission as a high-quality R&D Center focused on assessment, validity, technology, learning, teaching, and schools. In other words, CRESST is still CRESST. 

A CRESST news release and UCLA Newsroom post contain additional details. 

Learning Progressions Symposium Announced

A special May 1st symposium featuring CRESST colleagues will be offered at this year's annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco.

Alison Bailey, Margaret Heritage, Kimberly Reynolds Kelly, Barbara Jones, Markus Iseli, and Ali Abedi will present in the symposium, Developing and Using Language Learning Progressions for Improved Instruction and Assessment of English Language Learners. The symposium takes place on May 1st from 10:35 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. in the Powell II room of the Parc 55 Hotel. 

A flyer is available with complete details.   

Yunyun Dai Publishes Article in Major Journal

The distinguished journal Applied Psychological Measurement recently published an article by CRESST Senior Researcher Yunyun Dai.

Dr. Dai's article addresses a special case of item response theory called the Mixture Rasch Model, where examinee covariates may be related to latent class membership. 

An abstract of Dr. Dai's article is available as well as the full article itself. 

Other research co-authored by Dr. Dai is available on the CRESST web site. 

New CRESST Distinguished Speaker Series

CRESST Co-directors Eva Baker and Li Cai recently announced the CRESST Distinguished Scholar Colloquium Series, with Dr. Randy Bennett from Educational Testing Service as the first invited speaker for 2013. 

On Monday, March 18, Dr. Bennett, a well known assessment and technology expert, presented his paper, "Preparing for the Future: What Educational Assessment Must Do." 

Heritage to Participate with Distinguished Colleagues

At this year's meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), CRESST Assistant Director for Professional Development Margaret Heritage will be among the presenters on a special symposium hosted by the Hispanic Issues SIG.  

A flyer provides additional details about this language learning symposium that will highlight the equity challenge ahead for more than 6 million English Language Learners. The AERA meeting takes place in San Francisco from April 27 - May 1, 2013.

Presentations by CRESST researchers and others at AERA may be searched on the AERA Program Portal.