ABSTRACT
Portland Public Schools (PPS) has a long heritage of trying to improve measurement for the students in the district. Since 1977, Portland has used tests drawn from large item pools calibrated to an item response (IRT) theory model (Hambleton & Swaminathan, 1985; Lord, 1980; Lord & Novick, 1968). These tests are designed as functional level tests (Hathaway, 1980), which match the difficulty of a test that a student takes to the student’s past performance. This paper-and-pencil testing system allows students to take test questions that are challenging, but not frustrating.
