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Abstract
The No Child Left Behind Act is a mandate from the federal government for education to increase student performance and school accountability. As a result of this mandate, many states have issued the use of high-stakes standardized tests as a means of monitoring schools' accountability. New York State administers the English Language Arts (ELA) exam annually to all students enrolled in the third through eighth grade. The ELA measures students' level of proficiency in English language arts. Only recently has information regarding the reliability and validity of the instrument been made available. With limited existing research, further examination of the instrument's validity is essential. Therefore, this study examined the validity of the ELA by establishing the predictive validity, looking at the relationship between student performances on the ELA in the fourth and eighth grades, as well as student performance on the English Regents exam administered in eleventh grade Student performance was compared longitudinally; including student performance on a TerraNova exam administered in second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh grades. Although overall student performance was shown to improve, individual student performance was consistent and reliably predicted over time despite Academic Intervention Services (AIS). The ELA exam demonstrated predictive validity.
