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This chapter traces the technological evolution of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) from early development of software programs designed to enhance teachers’ decision making for individual- and classroom-based instruction, to more recent innovations that enable data-based decision making at individual, classroom, school, and even district levels. It illustrates the promise of online collaboration technologies to reduce the barriers of time and distance that often limit teachers’ ability to engage in CBM data-sharing and problem-solving discussions with their peers. It discusses how web-based technologies enable researchers to continue to investigate the capacity of CBM to inform educational decision making.

This chapter begins by highlighting the critical features of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) that make it possible to use the measures in conjunction with current large-scale assessments. It acknowledges that, under the leadership of Stanley Deno, individuals who have worked with CBM over the past four decades are ready to take the measurement system to a new level, as they interact with other measurement systems from state departments of education. This next level would involve the use of more precise scaling, presumably using some form of Item Response Theory (IRT). Finally, the chapter proposes how CBM can provide critical information to help teachers make important decisions about student participation in large-scale testing programs.

This chapter traces the evolution of the idea for Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), and provides an overview of CBM research as conceptualized and operationalized by Dr. Stanley L. Deno and as eventually practiced by so many researchers in the fields of special education, school psychology, and general education. It concludes by considering Deno’s legacy, the magnitude of his contribution, and its continuing potential for enhancing the practice of education.

This chapter describes Deno’s influence on the development of progress monitoring measures for secondary reading, writing, and content-area learning. It also reflects on the potential contributions of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) to secondary school programming. In the areas of reading and writing, CBM progress measures might be used to answer questions such as the following: Do students with learning disabilities (LD) plateau in skills—that is, is it true that “if they haven’t learned it by now, they never will?” If skills do improve, is it worth expending the instructional time and effort it takes to effect such improvements? In content-area learning, the questions that might be answered by CBM can include: How much do students with LD learn in content-area classes such as science and social studies? How much do we expect them to learn?

This chapter discusses the factors that have contributed to the success of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) within the teaching profession. First, CBM research began with teachers, taking a bottom-up approach. Second, it has been aligned with special education federal legislation, in turn helping teachers maintain due process compliance. Third, CBM has further professionalized the field of teaching by giving teachers the resources needed to do the professional work of problem solving. The chapter concludes with a case example that illustrates how one teacher used CBM to make decisions about reading instruction for an individual student.

This chapter looks at Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) research in South Korea. CBM has been used as an assessment tool not only for students with learning disabilities but also for low-achieving students in South Korea. Research on CBM has focused on the development of a progress-monitoring system for students with learning difficulties. Thus far, the CBM measures have been found to have good psychometric characteristics. With the increased use of advanced statistical techniques such as Hierarchical Linear Modeling, more systematic research can be directed toward the characteristics of the measures as growth-monitoring measures. The use of CBM is also expected to expand into the areas of educational counseling and communication disorders.

Statewide assessment activities and efforts surrounding Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) have become increasingly intertwined over time, especially during the past decade during which the use of assessments for accountability has dramatically increased. This chapter addresses this intertwining by describing the value of the contributions of CBM to assessments related to Individualized Education Programs (IEPs); state regular grade-level and alternate assessments; accommodations and modifications; and new accountability provisions for growth models.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act’s (IDEA) free appropriate public education (FAPE) requirements compel school-based teams to develop Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) that meet the procedural and substantive requirements of the law. That is, IEP team members need a thorough understanding of the legal strictures that they must follow when developing a student’s IEP. This chapter examines how Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) can be used in developing, implementing, and monitoring students’ IEPs. It first considers the procedural and substantive aspects of IEP development. It then explains how CBM can be used when developing IEPs. It is argued that by using CBM as a basis to develop students’ IEPs, teachers and other members of the team can ensure that their IEPs are both educationally meaningful and legally sound. In fact, using CBM to develop students’ IEPs, monitor student progress, and react appropriately to the data, school-based teams will result in IEPs that are virtually legally unassailable.

This chapter traces the evolution of current educational practices in problem solving and response to intervention to Dr. Stanley Deno’s leadership and to early collaborations with the special education program in the Minneapolis Public Schools. It describes the process used to develop Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) standards for screening students in general education settings and for comparing data for students in Title I, special education, and general education programs.

This chapter assesses whether Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is contributing to the health of general education. It considers objections to the claim that CBM is a valid assessment technique. It finds that most of the arguments challenging the validity of CBM are weak. It also considers problems stemming from educators’ understanding of the interplay between assessment and instruction. In teaching preservice teacher candidates in an introductory assessment class, it is difficult to convince them that progress monitoring built on one-minute measures can provide the foundation for instructional change and child achievement. Part of the problem is their lack of familiarity with assessment in general and their background knowledge that is deeply embedded in their own assessment experiences. More work needs to be done to help preservice teachers grasp the finer points of connecting assessment to instruction without making them identical.

This chapter reports on a review of empirical research in Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) in Korea. It details chapter’s the author’s development of a Korean version of CBM, which came to be known as Basic Academic Skills Assessment (BASA). It shows that CBM has had an influence on the Korean public education system. CBM is also expected to move beyond special education and intervention to other diverse fields and topics in the future.

This chapter organizes the big ideas gleaned from the various contributions in this volume around a set of Ps; that is, some themes that might capture characteristics of the impact of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) research on the field of education, special education, and school psychology. It highlights the following Ps: progenitor, parsimonious, prescient, powerful, principled, programmatic, participatory, passionate, and phish and phishing. The chapter concludes that while CBM is highly quantitative and objective, it provides educators a fine way to judge whether an intervention is making a difference. At the heart of Deno’s work and the use of CBM is social values, a fact that is often overlooked by many, but not by many of the chapters’ authors.

This chapter examines the utility of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) for aligning classroom instruction with statewide standards and state-adopted tests of students’ achievement. It begins with a brief description of a utilitarian perspective on test validity and outlines the challenges and potential value of using CBM to link instruction to state- or district-level standards. The latter half of the chapter summarizes research that estimates and compares aim lines using two criteria, the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and the Texas Assessment of Knowledge (TAKS). The criterion measures differ in the level of performance necessary to qualify as proficient. The chapter also considers form effects of the reading passages used to measure oral reading fluency (ORF) by evaluating differences in curriculum-based prompts and their effect on the student performance trajectories necessary to predict success on the SAT and the TAKS. Finally, it discusses the instructional implications of these prediction models using CBM.

This chapter reviews studies that have extended the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) to monitor first graders’ progress in reading. These studies show that by frequently assessing at-risk first graders, rates of progress can be estimated in a reliable and valid manner. Accordingly, it appears feasible to determine which at-risk students are not making sufficient progress and to offer them help with minimal delay. Progress monitoring with lists of words is the approach with the strongest empirical support, but important issues remain unresolved. It is notably crucial to determine the extent to which first graders’ scores are influenced by word selection and to develop guidelines for word selection.

This chapter highlights the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) data throughout school-based organizational structures to support teachers and administrators in instructional decision making and the determination of effective intervention practices. In recent years, emphasis has been placed on a three-tier model and/or a school-wide model within a Response to Intervention (RTI). As a result, schools analyze data at the classroom, grade, building, and district levels to evaluate core, supplemental, and intensive instructional supports and services. The chapter discusses how General Outcome Measures (GOMs) have been used to support the implementation of a multi-tiered service delivery model within an RTI framework. It outlines how GOMs are used at each of the three service-delivery tiers—tier 1: quality instruction for all students; tier 2: supplemental instruction for some students; and tier 3: intensive instruction.

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is a valid, efficient, and effective weapon against reading failure. In August 2006, a team of Western and Central Pennsylvania researchers received Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) funding to document and evaluate the implementation of a school-wide progress monitoring model aimed at improving reading achievement in grades K-4 and reducing unnecessary referrals to special education. This chapter describes the implementation of CBM practices within the Monitoring Progress of Pennsylvania Pupils (MP³) model at Larue Elementary School. Across three years of implementation, at most grade levels, there was not only an increase in the percentage of students meeting grade-level benchmarks but, more important, there was a decrease in the number of students performing far below grade level.

This chapter focuses on the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) for making special education eligibility decisions for English Language Learners (ELLs) in Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS), a large urban district in the Midwest. It describes the process, procedures, data, and results of using CBM reading, writing, and mathematics to develop district-wide local norms for ELLs. The norms presented can be used to represent typical progress for students who are learning basic skills while they are learning English. The progress of students referred for special education services can be compared to the progress of their peers. Comparisons can then be used for special education decision making (e.g. eligibility for placement in special education) and monitoring progress in academics.

This chapter describes the challenges to teaching and assessing students with significant cognitive disabilities as well as including them in state standards accountability. Student with significant cognitive disabilities refers to students who both have an identified disability and who participate in state standards assessments through the alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards. The chapter goes on to describe the reading development and literacy framework used in two pilot studies examining newly developed General Outcome Measures (GOMs), some initial results, and the need for future research.

Dr. Stanley Deno made substantial contributions to the field of school psychology. Perhaps the most noted and widely recognized of the contributions is the conceptualization, development, and dissemination of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). As is true of many researchers in school psychology, the chapter’s author has spent a substantial amount of time and energy on the study of CBM procedures and instrumentation. This chapter makes explicit Deno’s influence. It provides brief explanations and key excerpts that illustrate how a scholar in the field of special education has influenced the field of School Psychology.