The Changing State of Assessment - EdWeek Spotlight

Education WeeK Spotlight on MATH Instruction
edweek.org
2013
On The Changing State of Assessment

Editors Note: Good teaching
and quality assessments go
hand-in-hand to support
students in the classroom. In
this Spotlight discover how
formative assessments support
teaching and learning, see how
testing is changing in the
common-core era, and examine
key factors needed to build
high-quality assessments.
Published September 11, 2013, in Education Week
common core: a steep climb
One Districts Common-Core

Bet: Results Are In
Table of CONTENTS:
1 One Districts Common-Core
Bet: Results Are In
5 New NAEP Demands
Application of Knowledge
photo by Jared Soares for Education Week
6 Test-Driving the Common Core

7 Busting Up Misconceptions
About Formative Assessment

9 Experts Urge States
To Stay Course on High-Quality
Assessments
Commentary:
10 Waving the Flag for
Formative Assessment
11 Gaining a New Appreciation
for Assessments
Resources:
13 Resources on The Changing
State of Assessment
By Catherine Gewertz
Washington
taring at multicolored rows of names and numbers on

a laptop screen, Dowan McNair-Lee is searching for
clues to how well she taught her students.
The 2012-13 school year was a difficult journey, as
the English/language arts teacher tried to move her challenging and varied group of 8th graders to mastery of the Common
Core State Standards. Now, two weeks before the 2013-14 year
In a meeting at Watkins
Elementary School last
month, teachers from
Stuart-Hobson Middle
School comb through
data from last spring's
DC CAS test.
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Education WeeK Spotlight on The Changing State of Assessment
edweek.org
instruction went well last school year and which

didnt.
In classrooms all over the District of Columbia,
the work of this small team is replicated as staff
members from 111 schools prepare for the new
year. Theyre analyzing student performance on
the DC CAS, the school systems end-of-year test,
by grade level, subject, student subgroup, right
down to the individual academic standards themselves.
What they find will help shape this years
teaching and instructional coaching at the school
level, and curriculum resources and professional
development at the district level.
The data analysis caps the second year of an
unusually aggressive and comprehensive campaign to put the English/language arts common
standards into practice in the nations capital. By
turns rewarding and frustrating, the districts
work offers a flavor of what schools around the
country might anticipate as they wade into the
standards, which now guide learning in all but
four states.
As the District of Columbia has seen, even as
a vast new push to make change can produce
promising results, it cant reach every student
and teacher with the support they need.
Promoting a Class
photo by Jared Soares for Education Week
Teachers from Stuart-Hobson

Middle School comb through
data from last spring's DC
CAS test.
begins, she scrolls through year-end test scores

that deliver part of the verdict on her success.
Scanning the rows of data, color-coded by
achievement level, brings a roller coaster of reactions. Ms. McNair-Lee claps and beams when
she notices a student who moved from the basic
level of performance to proficient. High fives!
she exclaims, raising one palm in the air. She
applauds and smiles again when she scrolls a
few rows down and sees another success story:
a girl who had been high on the teachers radar
because of her behavior and academic problems
moved from proficient to advanced.
Only a moment later, Ms. McNair-Lee frowns
and shakes her head. On her computer screen,
she sees that two students who scored basic
in 2012 slipped to below basic in 2013. One
of them is Mikel Robinson, who seesawed academically all year long. In the end, he eluded her
reach, leaving her wistful as he left her tutelage
for the uncertainties of high school.
I hate it, but theres nothing I can do about it
now. Its over, she says, softly. Some of them, I
sent them out well. And some of them, like Mikel,
I keep wondering what more I could have done.
Those emotional ups and downs permeate the
mid-August dive into the test-score data by Ms.
McNair-Lee and her colleagues from StuartHobson Middle School. Trying to ignore the stuffy
classroom heat and the jackhammers pounding
outside, the educators spend hours bent over laptops and printouts, parsing which parts of their
The few months before the August data sessions had been intense ones for Ms. McNair-Lee.
In late April, she battened down hard with her
8th graders to prepare for the year-end tests. In
the weeks that followed, she battled their exhaustionand her owntrying to keep them
focused on the material that had to be covered
before graduation.
Finally, they were done. On a mid-June evening, the teenagers flooded the polished StuartHobson hallways, a river of girls in white dresses,
with pinned-up hair, and a stream of boys in crisp
collared shirts and snazzy shoes. Just the sight
of them dissolved Ms. McNair-Lees promise not
to cry. She had taught them for two years, called
them her babies, and knew all too well that
while some would soar when they left her, others
would stumble.
In an auditorium packed with family members,
the students listened to speeches and songs, then
rose from their seats and filed across the stage for
the last time. It was Ms. McNair-Lee who called
each of them by name as they came up the stairs
and made their way through a line of handshakes. When it was Mikels turn, he crossed the
stage with a serious face, then broke into a big
grin when social studies teacher Sean McGrath
grabbed him for a hug.
Principal Dawn Clemens took the microphone
and said: By the power vested in me, I pronounce each and every one of you a high school
student. The room erupted in cheers and camera flashes, then emptied, slowly, into hallway
gridlock. Without a tissue, Ms. McNair-Lee kept
wiping her cheeks as swarms of girls locked her

in group hugs.
On the front steps of the school, Mikel found
a moment for a farewell hug from his English
teacher. Then he turned his back to the school
to join his family, and they drifted off down
the sidewalk in the fading evening light.
Making Headway
Six weeks later, at a middle school a few
miles away, districtwide test scores were announced. At a celebratory event featuring
District of Columbia Mayor Vincent C. Gray
and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, the
school district lauded its progress.
While city schools are far from where they
need to be, they said, with just under half of
students reading on grade level, theyve come
a long way: Reading scores are 4 percentage
points higher than in 2012, and 13 points
higher than six years ago. (Scores in math,
science, and composition rose, also.)
Reflecting on the scores in an interview over
the summer, Ms. Henderson said they show
that the districts investments in curricular
materials, professional development, and good
This year, the district hopes to spread and

deepen its use of the response-to-intervention
processa screening strategy to see what students needand put the right supports into
place, Mr. Pick said.
What this comes down to is building school
teams abilities to look at individual kids and
work with them and their families, he said.
Its not rocket science; its having conversations as a team about what you are going to
do to serve these kids.
Stories Within the Numbers

The team at Stuart-Hobson, one of the
higher-achieving middle schools in the
45,000-student system, found no shortage of
reasons to celebrate as it sat down to peruse
its test scores.
Schoolwide, the proficiency rate on the
DC CAS in English/language arts rose from
59 percent in 2012 to 64 percent, with even
brisker growth among black students and
those from low-income families. Stuart-Hobsons performance put it head and shoulders
above its school district, whose K-12 reading
What this comes down to is building school

teams abilities to look at individual kids and work
with them and their families. Its not rocket science;
its having conversations as a team about what you
are going to do to serve these kids.
Brian Pick
Chief of Teaching and Learning, District of Columbia Public Schools
teachers and principals are starting to pay off.

This isnt episodic success, its systemic
success, the chancellor said. We saw growth
at every single grade, in every ward, all the
subgroups. That tells me that its not just dependent on the quality of the principal in one
particular school. This work is landing, and
landing consistently across the board.
The district leadership team is just beginning to mine the granular messages in the
score data. In the coming weeks, officials will
examine the literacy results strand by strand,
said Brian Pick, who oversees curriculum for
the district.
But a few big themes have already emerged
and are shaping the school districts approach
to 2013-14. Sixth grade literacy was a weak
spot citywide and will be drawing special attention as coaching and professional development moves forward. English-language learners and African-American boys, too, are not
progressing well enough.
proficiency rose from 43 percent to 47 percent.

There were things to celebrate that dont
show up on the year-end test, too. Suspensions, for instance, had dropped significantly,
thanks apparently to a special focus on behavior issues by a new dean of students and a
new assistant principal.
But some of the data points brought grimaces. Proficiency rates declined for special
education students. The 6th grade didnt fare
well in English/language arts. When that
group of students finished 5th grade, 60 percent were proficient on the DC CAS; by the
end of 6th grade, that proportion had dropped
to 51 percent. A new teacher is now setting
up shop in the 6th grade classroom at Stuart
Hobson.
The 7th graders fared far better: Leaving
6th grade in 2012, 49 percent were reading
on or above grade level. After a school year
with teacher Kip Plaisted, 72 percent hit
that mark. He knocked it out of the park,
edweek.org
Principal Clemens said as she reviewed those

figures.
Ms. McNair-Lee took her 8th graders from
60 percent proficiency to 69 percent.
With those kinds of numbers in hand, the
Stuart-Hobson staff set about filling in a grid
listing progress and challenges. In the coming weeks, that would morph into a school
plan with goals for the new year that would
be reviewed, in one-on-one meetings, by the
regional superintendent and the schools chancellor.
But now, the staff members detailed, subgroup by subgroup, student by student, the
glows and grows they found in the data.
Analyzing one 6th grade groups work, for
instance, they wrote on the glows side of the
grid that six of 41 moved to proficient, and
one special education student remained at
proficient. On the grows sidea reference
to areas needing improvementthe teachers
and administrators noted that five dropped
from proficient to basic, 14 remained at basic,
and two dropped to below basic.
In this way, tiny detail by tiny detail, they
completed the grid that would help guide the
work of the coming year.
During another data session the following
week, Stuart-Hobson faculty members burrowed more deeply into their students performance in 2012-13, using an online tool that
allows them to review test scores from many
angles.
As they looked at 8th grade results, it was
clear that an area of particular focus last year,
reading informational text, remained a weak
point. Ms. McNair-Lees 8th graders answered
62 percent of such questions correctly. They
did better on reading literary text (72 percent
correct) and on vocabulary acquisition and
use (67 percent).
Within those figures, there were victories.
The ability to cite evidence to support analysis of informational textsomething Ms. McNair-Lee had hammered away at again and
againshowed a 10-percentage-point gain
from the previous year. Determining the main
idea in a literary textanother strand shed
hit hardsoared by 26 percentage points.
Preparing for New Year

While drilling into her students data more
deeply yielded some rewarding moments for
Ms. McNair-Lee, it also told some painful stories, and Mikels was one of them.
After two years at the basic level on the
English/language arts section of the DC CAS,
hed slipped to below basic. Of 113 StuartHobson 8th graders tested, only nine scored
low enough to be in that bottom category.
While his peers averaged more than 60 percent correct in each of the tests three strands,
he was getting fewer than one-third of the
questions right.

One comfort for Ms. McNair-Lee: Mikels

score was on the high end of below basic. Just
one more point and he would have scored
basic.
Suddenly quiet, she shuts her eyes tight,
shaking her head. Shes haunted by what she
might have overlooked.
But its just a week away from a new school
year, and she cant hang back. She has to look
ahead now, to her new role at Stuart-Hobson:
overseeing a schoolwide enrichment program.
All around her, colleagues are parsing the
minutiae of the test scores. At one table, the
new 6th grade teacher, Matt Foster, works on
a laptop with Stuart-Hobsons reading-intervention specialist, Beth Dewhurst, using the
forensic-data tool to locate test scores for all
incoming 6th graders.
Getting a glimpse this way of his incoming
students, Mr. Foster takes careful notes. It
would be even better to have the data earlier,
though, Ms. Dewhurst says.
Next year, were going to make nice in
the spring with all the principals [in feeder
schools that] send us students. That way, well
have this pipeline open earlier, she said.
Across the room, Mr. Plaisted, the 7th grade
English/language arts teacher, and Christopher Purdy, a special education teacher, are
using the test-score data to brief Monica
Green, whos assumed Ms. McNair-Lees
perch in 8th grade. Its a passing of the torch,
a conveyance of far more than test scores.
Scrolling through the display on his laptop
screen, Mr. Plaisted points one by one to students, discussing their scores, as well as their
areas of academic strength and weakness,
their home lives, personality quirks, and other
information that will help Ms. Green anticipate their needs.
One student is a sweet kid, and he tries,
Mr. Plaisted tells her. We could tap into that.
Another students scores dont reflect his
reading ability. I think he can read well, Mr.
Plaisted tells Ms. Green, but when it comes
down to the questions on the test, it throws
him. Its the test-taking.
For other students, its the reverse: This
guy scored advanced only because he had a
lucky day, Mr. Plaisted says. And, This kid
never understood main idea to save his life.
Hes always focused on minute details.
In this way, the teachers analyze every student at each level of performance, discussing
the prospects for moving them further along.
A pivotal difference in their discussion
flows from an important change this year to
the districts accountability system. Instead
of being credited only for students who reach
proficiency, schools now receive credit for each
upward move a student makes on the performance scale.
The four levels on the testbelow basic,
basic, proficient, and advancedare now divided into seven. That allows a school to earn
20 points on the districts accountability index
when a child moves up even within one of
those bands, from low below basic to high
below basic, for instance.
The change is meant to encourage teachers
to focus not just on the bubble kids poised
to move into proficiency, but on all students
regardless of their place on the performance
spectrum.
The August data sessions flowed into a
schoolwide improvement plan for StuartHobson that includes the goal of reaching 70
percent proficiency in reading this school year.
Better coordinating the work of the three
English/language arts teachers and working
with teachers across the curriculum on techniques to help students master complex text
will be key strategies in reaching that goal.
A New Focus
The District of Columbia systems focus on
the common standards in reading now moves
into year 3, but layered on top is a push into
the writing standards. That new priority was
front and center in a late-August professionaldevelopment day.
Spread across classrooms on two floors of a
high school, secondary-level teachers hunker
down with instructional coaches to work on
sentence composition.
Stuart-Hobsons Matt Foster is here, with
other 6th grade teachers, in a session co-led
by Sarah Hawley, Stuart-Hobsons assigned
instructional coach. Mr. Plaisted joins 7th
grade teachers across the hall, and Ms. Green
does likewise with her 8th grade group.
Echoing the session leaders in the other
rooms, Ms. Hawley guides her 6th grade
teachers in an exercise about subordinating
conjunctions. Theyre learning how to work
this kind of instruction into a class study of a
text, instead of teaching it in isolation. Theyre
exploring how to scaffold the ideas, so all
students can grasp them.
In the coming months, other professionaldevelopment sessions will focus on composing
sentences and building paragraphs. Working
with their own coaches at their schools this
year, teachers will bring samples of their students work to analyze and to inform their
instructional plans.
As Ms. Hawley begins shaping this years
coaching plans for the teachers, she factors
in a complex blend of teachers and students
needs, test-score data, last years emphasis
on text complexity and close reading, and this
years move into the writing standards.
Two of the three English/language arts
teachers are new to Stuart-Hobson this year,
so new working relationships must be formed.
edweek.org
There is much to do, and already the big

clocks in each classroom serve as a constant
reminder.
Other things have changed at Stuart-Hobson, too. Katie Franklin, who oversaw English/language arts as one of two assistant
principals, is now in a district program that
prepares her to become a principal. Inheriting
her duties is Katherine Turner, an outgoing
and energetic import from a nearby charter
school.
Ms. McNair-Lee has given up her classroom
to direct a new schoolwide enrichment program that allows students to study through
the lens of something theyre interested in.
Even though Ms. McNair-Lee was ready for
something new, leaving her classroom was
still causing pangs in her belly as the new
year began. Shell keep her hand in teaching,
though, working with students on projects.
Shell think about last years students, the
ones she greeted every morning with her
standard line: Good morning, scholars. As
the summer heat wanes, theyre learning
their way around the unfamiliar campuses of
high schools across the city.
One of those studentsone of those she
worries about mostis starting out in his
new high school with an uncertain hold on
important skills. And as Mikel disappears
into those wide, crowded hallways, where
no teacher knows his name yet, his former
teacher wonders how hes doing, and she
crosses her fingers.
Coverage of deeper learning that will prepare
students with the skills and knowledge needed to
succeed in a rapidly changing world is supported
in part by a grant from the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, at www.hewlett.org.
Education Week retains sole editorial control over
the content of this coverage.
This story is part of a four part series, entitled
Common Core: A Steep Climb. To view the entire
story series, please visit: http://www.edweek.org/
ew/collections/common-core-a-steep-climb/index.
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Published March 27, 2013, in Education Week
Focus On: Engineering
New NAEP Demands

Application of Knowledge
20,000 students to be assessed
next year
By Sarah D. Sparks
nderstanding the mathematical

formula to calculate lift and thrust
is still a long way from designing a
747 airplane, and the U.S. Department of Education is trying to get students to
cross that bridge with the development of a
new way to gauge how well they both understand and apply technology and engineering
principles.
The National Center for Education Statistics is nearing completion of a 15,000-student
pilot testthe largest in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress
to craft a new technology- and engineeringliteracy test, or the TEL.
What were talking about here is trying
to put the T-E in STEM, said NCES Commissioner Sean P. Jack Buckley, referring to
the common term for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Weve been assessing the [science and math] for some time,
but its been much harder to figure out the
framework for an actual, practical, functional
field assessment for technology and engineering components.
The current pilot, on track to be finished by
the end of this month, targets 8th graders. In
2014, a final version of the test is slated to be
administered to a nationally representative
sample of 20,000 such students, with results
expected in 2015. Eventually, the TEL will
cover the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades.
This is really important, and Im glad to
see it, said Adam Gamoran, a member of the
National Board of Education Sciences, the
Education Departments research advisory
group, and the director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
While a few curricula, such as the International Baccalaureate program, include engineering and technology courses, Mr. Gamo-
ran noted there is little research on how well

even todays digital native generation understands technology and engineering.
From my vantage point as a sociology researcher, I suspect there remains a substantial digital dividethat children from different backgrounds will have vastly different
experiences with these questions about technology, he said. This will provide evidence
of something we have many suspicions about
but virtually no evidence.
New Direction
The TEL represents a significant shift for
the battery of tests commonly dubbed the
nations report card. It will be NAEPs first
entirely computer-based test and the first to
use a majority of interactive scenario-based
questions.
International assessments, in particular the Program for International Student
Assessment, already gauge proficiency in
more comprehensive and applied-science
questions, which is in part why experts say
American students performance tends to lag
behind that of students in other countries on
PISA.
More than 2,000 engineering and technology professionals from around the United
States contributed to the development of
the tests framework, which covers three interconnected areas: the design process and
principles of dealing with technology in daily
life; information and communication-systems
technology, such as computer networks and
mobile devices; and the social and ethical
implications of technologys effects in the
natural world.
Were pretty good at assessing students in
science, but how do we assess the difference
between a scientific solutionsome sort of
global, perfect universal solutionand engineering, which is a lot more about trade-offs
and constraints in a given situation to get a
solution that works? Mr. Buckley said.
The solution, he said, is to include much
more complex and higher-order-thinking
items than have previously been used in

NAEP.
Testing Scenarios
Roughly 20 percent of the tests questions
will cover concrete facts and information. The
rest will use a new kind of question, which requires students to interact in engineering or
technology scenarios, to apply ways of critical thinking and problem-solving that are associated with engineering.
Each scenario is 10, 20, or 30 minutes long
and gauges a students mastery of engineering practices, such as systematically using
technology, tools, and skills to solve a problem
or achieve a specific goal, or using technology
to communicate and collaborate with a team
and consult experts.
For example, a student may be asked to collaborate with a simulated boss via videoconference to improve the consumer life cycle
of a toaster.
NAEP is not alone in the world of largescale standardized assessment in trying to
come up with ways to better assess how people work collaboratively, Mr. Buckley said.
Moreover, the test will also begin to use
student-activity data to report and evaluate
how the student solves each problem. For
example, NAEPs writing test collects information about how students used the in-test
word-processing software to check spelling
and edit sentences, but does not use that information to evaluate students performance.
In this assessment, a student might get more
points for answering a problem efficiently and
making the best use of the tools available.
The intent is to be much more authentic
and closer to a real project, Mr. Buckley said.
During the tests administration, the NCES
will also collect data on students access to
technology at home and teachers use of technology in the classroom.
Coverage of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics education is supported by a grant
from the Noyce Foundation, at www.noycefdn.org.

edweek.org
Published June 12, 2013, in Education Week Digital Directions
Test-Driving the Common Core

Schools across the country are learning vital lessons in pilot tests of online
assessments for the common standards
By Leslie Harris OHanlon
ore than a million students across

the country have traded their No.
2 pencils, test booklets, and bubble sheets for computing devices
to participate in a pilot of math and English/
language arts online assessments tied to the
Common Core State Standards.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium launched a pilot of its computer assessments to glean information about the
performance of different test questions and
the test-delivery system under real-world
conditions. The Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC,
another consortium developing online tests
for the common core, also has piloted some of
its prototype online-assessment questions to
support educators as they transition to the
new standards and to PARCC assessments.
Although there were bumps in the road for
some schools that took part in the pilot testing, many educators say test-driving the assessments helped them better understand
how they need to prepare for the time when
all their students in grades 3-12 take the new
tests, starting in 2014-15.
Don Matthews, the director of educational
services for the 1,400 student Larkspur-Corte
Madera school district in California, says
that involvement in pilot testing has made
him and others think hard about what they
need to do to improve their technological infrastructure to support online testing. About
300 5th and 6th graders from his district
were tested in the Smarter Balanced pilot in
April. The students used MacBook laptops to
take the tests.
We want to make sure our technology is
compatible and as flawless as possible, Matthews says. Obviously, there is concern that
if computers are three years old, they wont be
able to do certain things. So we are examining
what we have in place and determining what
we need to have in place to do what we need
to do with online testing.
The district plans to upgrade its Wi-Fi system and bandwidth this summer, he says. It is
also considering buying more devices so that
students can take the online assessments in
their classrooms and in the library, rather
than having them all in computer labs.

We are looking at [Google] Chromebooks,
says Matthews, referring to the devices, which
are similar to netbooks. They are a very affordable option compared to buying laptops,
and they are compatible. They also are good
for portability.
Preparing Test Administrators

One of the most important lessons learned
for some Vermont educators was that not
only do the students need to be prepared for
the assessments, but so do test administrators, says Paul Smith, a curriculum and assessment specialist for Windham Southeast
Supervisory Union, a school district of 2,600
students in Brattleboro, Vt. While it was a
relatively minor bump, there was some confusion about how to log students into the system and other procedures during pilot testing. Sixty students in grades 4, 6, and 7 used
mostly Mac laptops to take the Smarter Bal-
school class of 34 students taking the test in a

computer lab, almost all the participants kept
getting bounced off the system one after the
other. Students mostly used desktop computers to take the tests.
We never did figure out why this happened, Loughrey says.
Rose-Ann McKernan, the executive director
of instructional accountability for the Albuquerque schools, says the technology director
for the district is worried about server and
network capacity at the schools. Making all
the necessary upgrades could cost millions of
dollars, she says.
The district could use money from the state
allocated to schools for technology to buy new
computers and to make other technology improvements, McKernan says. The district may
also appeal to the state legislature for more
funds for technology improvements.
But with all the talk of money and how it
should be spent, its important to keep the big
picture in mind, McKernan points out.
People are stepping back and saying we are not

just talking about network and devices for testing, but
about making upgrades in technology for our whole
educational system for students as well as for testing.
So how do we upgrade for that across the board?
Rose-Ann McKernan
Executive Director of Instructional Accountability, Albuquerque Public Schools
anced pilot test in April.

It was a new set of procedures, and we need
a couple of times to go through it to practice
it, Smith says. If I introduce a new piece of
software to staff, there is a learning curve
there. This is the exact same thing.
About 1,300 students in the 90,000-student
Albuquerque public schools in New Mexico
took part in a PARCC prototype pilot last
year. Out of the 20 schools in the pilot, 14 had
connectivity problems, says Michael Loughrey,
the districts assessment manager. In a high
People are stepping back and saying we are

not just talking about network and devices for
testing, but about making upgrades in technology for our whole educational system for
students as well as for testing, she says. So
how do we upgrade for that across the board?
Pleasantly Surprised
When it comes to childrens ability to take
a test on a computer rather than with paper
and pencil, many district officials around the

country say their students had no problems adapting to the new format.
I was pleasantly surprised that these
third graders were able to maneuver from
problem to problem much better than I
had anticipated, says Kent Henson, the
assistant superintendent for instructional services for the West Ottawa public
schools in Holland, Mich. About 240 students in the 7,200-student district took
tests in the Smarter Balanced pilot this
spring.
Henson says: They had to drag and
drop, to highlight, and they had to compare and contrast. They had to write a
letter. They had to watch a video, which
meant putting on headphones. They had
to fill in boxes on a table. There were a lot
of different mouse-manipulation tasks.
The pilot test questions were a mix of
multiple-choice questions, problem solving, short-answer responses, and other
tasks. Students had to drag and drop answers into different boxes.
Some districts in Michigan experienced
technical difficulties with the pilot testing, he says.
I heard about schools that had issues
with servers that werent working. Some
kids were kicked out [of the system] or it
wouldnt accept their login, says Henson.
I heard that in one-to-one [computing]
schools where kids were taking these
tests on laptops of various kinds, they had
[technical] problems.
McKernan of the Albuquerque district
says joining in the PARCC pilot was eyeopening for teachers because they could
see how the common standards will be
assessed.
It makes things more concrete. It
leaves less room for each of us to interpret the standards in our own way, she
says. It isnt about assessment driving
instruction. Its about assessment articulating the expectations in a more concrete
fashion. That was very helpful for our
teachers.
Matthews of Californias LarkspurCorte Madera schools also says the pilot
was helpful for teachers to know in what
ways students will be asked to show what
they know.
Common-core standards are more
rigorous, with more of an emphasis on
critical thinking and problem-solving, he
says. So this pilot helped to inform their
instruction because teachers saw how
learning is going to be measured in the
future.
Some students who were comfortable
with the technology itself struggled with
the actual content of the test, according to
some district officials.
They loved doing math on the computer, and they are very quick with the
mouse, Loughrey, the assessment manager in Albuquerque, says. But after observing a 6th grade class taking the test,
he asked the teacher about how she felt
her students handled the material.
She said that while they may say that
they did fine, her sense was that a lot of
them struggled with the material, he
says. The problems were rigorous. They
pushed the kids.
Assessing With Intent

Albuquerque and other districts are
doing a lot of work to make sure both
teachers and students are familiar with
the new standards.There is a lot of curricular work necessary to make sure
things are mapped out properly and that
content is in sync with the standards,
says Pat Cummings, the director of research and evaluation for the 30,000-student Tacoma, Wash., public schools. About
800 students participated in a Smarter
Balanced pilot in April, using mostly laptops, and some PCs, to take the tests.
You want a kid to take a test that
relates to what is going on in the classroom, Cummings says. The only way
to make the Smarter Balanced assessments meaningful is if common core is effectively integrated into the coursework.
Not only do teachers need to adjust
their curricula to meet the new standards, they also will need to adjust how
they are framing questions to test students throughout the year, educators say.
We need to be writing rigorous and
challenging assessments, Henson says.
If all we are doing is giving multiplechoice questions, then we are doing our
kids a disservice.
The biggest idea that the pilots underscored for many educators was that the
key for getting ready for the tests is not
just getting the technology ready, but also
having students and teachers know the
standards.
I think we have to make sure we are
teaching and assessing with intent on the
common core, Henson says. It is really
skills-based. Reading, writing, and listening skills are a huge part of being able to
take that test.
edweek.org
Published April 8, 2013, in Education Week

Curriculum Matters Blog
Busting Up
Misconceptions
About Formative
Assessment
o understand formative assessment,

its better to think of it less as a test,
and more as good teaching practice.
That was the message offered by a
panel of scholars and practitioners who convened on Capitol Hill today to clear up what
they see as widespread misunderstanding of
formative assessment. The gathering, sponsored by the research group WestEd and the
National Association of State Boards of Education, was timed to coincide with WestEds
release of a trio of policy papers about formative assessment.
The papersand the panel discussion
land at a particularly opportune time, since
two big groups of states are working on designing tests for the common standards.
While most of their focus (and their federal
funding) is being funneled to the year-end
and interim assessments, which will be rolled
out in 2015, they each have funding, through
a separate, supplemental grant, to design a
suite of accompanying tools and practices,
including formative assessments that will be
available through the groups online portals.
It isnt entirely clear yet what these formative tools and practicesas the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium calls them
will be. But clearly, the panelists see this as
a moment to influence the resources the two
consortia create, and publicly frame their use.
Margaret Heritage, the assistant director for
professional development at CRESST, a center for assessment research based at UCLA,
dismissed the common view that formative
assessment is about giving more frequent
mini-tests.
She said it is a set of practices that are designed not only to figure out how well students are learning as they go along, but to
provide feedback to them in concrete, actionable ways that enable them to make progress.
Part of the work, too, Heritage argued, is to
teach students to self-assess, self-monitor and
self-regulate, so they are more empowered
learners. Too often, she argued, the education

field discusses teaching and learning in a way

that frames students as passive recipients.
People still talk about delivering instruction
to children, as if theyre mailboxes into which
learning will be delivered, she said.
Stanley Rabinowitz, WestEds senior program director for assessment and standards
development, said many educators confuse interim assessment with formative assessment.
While ways of assessing studentsfiguring
out what they knowcan be envisioned as
points along a spectrum, he said, Id prefer
that you moosh together formative [assessment] with instruction, not with interim and
summative assessment.
A principal who has taken formative practices seriously at her school, and a WestEd
researcher who works with schools on the
practice, offered views from the field. They
made no bones about the difficulty of the work
if its done right; it requires an intense focus
on learning how to observe and document
students at work to gather evidence of what
they are learning, the two women said. It also
demands a deep dive into grain-sized analysis
of student work, and the art of giving careful, actionable feedback to spark their growth,
they said. All of this requires untold hours of
professional development, with teachers and
principals hunkered down for intense study
together, they said.
Letting formative assessment shape a
schools teaching means turning a basic underpinning of current classroom practice on
its head, said Nancy Gerzon, a senior research
associate at WestEd. Instead of starting with
what students dont know, and trying to fill
that empty space, start with figuring out what
students know and build on that, she said.
This is revolutionary, she said, and it leads
to crazy, chaotic, somewhat disorganizedlooking classrooms that arent typically
whats accepted in schools. If you look closely
at whats happening in such a classroom, however, she said, an impressive picture emerges.
She described a 5th grade classroom shes
been working in to illustrate her point. Its a
high-poverty school, but one in which achievement is improving since it has been revamping its work around formative assessment,
Gerzon said.
In this classroom, a visitor can see that kids
are everywhere. Theyre lying in beanbag
chairs by the window. Theyre bouncing on
springbound stools. Theyre sitting at computers or whiteboards. Some are working with
tutors, others with an ELL instructor. When
interviewed, though, they are quite able to describe exactly what theyre doing and how it
fits into the project theyve been conducting on
the impact of mining on the local geography.
They know exactly where they are in their
learning, and where they are going, Gerzon
said. They were able to tell her how the scatter plots they were making with data they
had gathered drew on lessons theyd learned

in math the previous week. And through this
whole process, the childrens teacher wasnt
leading the class. She was carrying a clipboard, documenting the evidence of learning
she was seeing throughout the classroom.
One of the challenges of undertaking this
kind of approach, Gerzon said, is that parents
dont understand it.
They walk in and see chaos, and they cant
see that all of this is planned, all of this is
structured, she said.
Its such a profound shift in practiceespecially the role of teacher as facilitatorthat
its impossible to underestimate how much
frequent on-the-job professional development
is required to accomplish it, said Yvonne Watterson, who got deeply into the practice as
the principal of Girls Leadership Academy of
Arizona. It required hundreds of tiny little
conversations, on an ongoing basis, about student work and how teachers can document it
and give feedback, she said. But it paid off:
the schools achievement on test scores rose,
Watterson said.
If any of these arguments sound familiar, it
could be because youve heard Heritage make
them before. We reported back in November 2010 about a paper Heritage wrote that
sounded some of these same notes. She also
discussed these themes on a panel shortly
after that paper came out.
All of that was happening just as the two assessment consortia won their federal grants
and began their work. Heritage was concerned then that formative practices would
be construed as just one more test. How is
she feeling now, two years later, as the suite of
tests and practices near their release?
The formative tools and practices created by
the consortia need a key ingredient to work
the way they should, she told me.
Without [professional development] to support teachers? Im not optimistic, she said.
Its how to be a teacher; thats what were really talking about.
edweek.org
People still
talk about
delivering
instruction to
children, as if
theyre mailboxes
into which
learning will be
delivered.
MArgaret Heritage
Assistant Director for Professional
Development, National Center for
Research on Evaluation, Standards
and Student Testing

edweek.org
Published June 20, 2013, in Education Week Curriculum Matters Blog
Experts Urge States To Stay Course

On High-Quality Assessments
Fort Washington, Md.
bevy of heavy-hitting assessment

experts has identified five things
that make assessments high
quality, and is urging states to
hold out for such tests in the face of political
and financial pressures that might weaken
their resolve.
Their report, Criteria for Higher-Quality
Assessment, urges states and districts to
demand these five things when evaluating
or building assessment systems:
n That they examine higher-order thinking
skills, especially those that are transferable and relate to applying knowledge to
new contexts.
n That they provide high fidelity evaluation of those higher-order skills, such as
through researching and presenting arguments.
n That they are internationally benchmarked to align assessment content and
measurement practices with those used in
leading nations.
n That they use instructionally sensitive
items that reflect how well teachers are
teaching and give them useful guidance
on how to improve.
n That they are valid, reliable, and fair, as
well as accessible to all learners.
These are the key factors, the experts said,
needed for systems of assessment that not
only measure the most important aspects
of student learning in meaningful ways, but
encourage good teaching and learning in
classrooms, and produce timely, actionable
feedback for teachers so they can adjust and
customize instruction.
The criteria were crafted by many of the
countrys best-known thinkers on gauging
student learning. The lead authors of the
report are James Pellegrino, Linda DarlingHammond, and Joan Herman. Three institutions released it jointly: the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, or
SCOPE; The National Center for Research
on Evaluation, Standards & Student Testing, or CRESST, at the University of California-Los Angeles; and the Learning Sciences
Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The assessment scholars chose the Council

of Chief State School Officers annual conference on student assessment here to release
their report today. It appears to be intended
in part to keep states on course toward the
common assessments being designed by two
state consortia at a time that some are getting political, financial and technological jitters, and in a few cases withdrawing from
those consortium projects. It also appears
to be aimed at the rising number of vendors
that are getting into the market to assess
the common standards.
In a conference session devoted to discussing the report, Joan Herman, a co-director
of CRESST, said there are signs that some
states could move away from the aspirational assessments currently being designed by two state consortia, and choose
cheaper, quicker tests in their place. Given
the consortias visionto produce a suite of
formative resources that support instruction, along with interim tests and summative assessments that include performance
tasks and constructed-response itemssuch
moves could take states back to the limitations of their current, predominantly multiple-choice tests, she said.
States are worried about whether the new
tests will take longer, cost more, or run into
technological snafus. Some worry that one
or both consortia wont deliver the tests on
time, in 2014-15, as promised. Others are
battling political headwinds as activists,
lawmakers, and others push back against
the testsand the standards on which
theyre basedas a federal intrusion on
local education decisions, since the U.S. Department of Education funded the common
assessment development, and strongly encouraged states to adopt the standards.
The consortia themselves are having to
contend with these pressures, and could well
be among the intended targets of the new
reports message. Both PARCC and Smarter
Balanced consortia have revised or scaled
back their test designs along the way in response to concerns about testing time and
cost.
There are threats every day that states
will back off their high expectations for new
tests, Herman told the conference participants. In the face of the pressures on them,
how do we help states stay the course?
Pellegrino, who led the session discussion with Herman, told participants that
the crafters of the criteria have a suite of
assessments in mind, not just one summative test. Formative strategies and tools to
help teachers gauge and guide learning as
it happens are an important part of that picture, as are interim tests, he said. But what
appears on large-scale summative tests is
important, he said, because of its power to
shape what happens in the classroom. So
statewide summative tests must include
and encourage the types of activities that
are complex and meaningful learning activities, he said.
One education researcher in the audience,
Fritz Mosher, noted that embracing largescale summative exams with the qualities
outlined in the report would suggest that
states and districts have embraced curricula
defined by similar criteria. Chuckling that
Mosher had brought the C word into the
conversation, Pellegrino noted that most
curricula and tests dont reach that level.
We have a long way to go in our curriculum
development process, he said.
Participants brainstormed about how
to keep states and districts focused on the
potential benefits of higher-quality tests.
Particularly important, some said, was including a number of performance tasks that
require students to engage in longer, more
complex activities to demonstrate their
understanding of the materials. But those
items are more costly to build and score.
How to build crucial buy-in for good assessments as brushfires of anti-testing sentiment keep cropping up in states is a crucial
question for which there were no easy answers.
Experience in recent decades with largescale testing has left the public disillusioned
by fairly sterile multiple-choice exams, Pellegrino said, so the task of convincing people
that new tests will be fundamentally differentand betteris a tough one.
Part of the backlash is legitimate, he
said. [People ask], Why are my kids spending time answering meaningless questions?
We have a ways to go to demonstrate that
the questions we are designing are relevant
and valuable.
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edweek.org
10
Published in Print: January 9, 2013, in Education Week
Commentary
Waving the Flag for

Formative Assessment
By W. James Popham
very educator knows what a teachable moment is. Its the brief period
of time when events serendipitously
conspire to teach students something
that otherwise might be difficult for them to
learn. Teachable moments are really quite
special, and they dont come along all that
often. A teacher who wastes a teachable moment, therefore, commits a pedagogical sin of
omission.
Interestingly, American educators are now
on the cusp of a different sort of special moment. In this instance, it stems from a unique
historical occasion during which teachers
adoption of the formative-assessment process
should be advocated with both honesty and
unparalleled zeal. Yes, this is formative assessments advocatable moment.
First off, it is important to recognize that
formative assessment works. Thats right:
Ample research evidence is now at hand to indicate emphatically that when the formativeassessment process is used, students learn
betterlots better. This should come as no
surprise, for the essence of formative assessment is surely commonsensical.
Formative assessment is simply a planned
process wherein teachers, or their students,
use assessment-elicited evidence of student
learning to decide whether to make changes
in what theyre currently doing. Teachers
find out if they need to adjust their ongoing
instruction. Students find out if they need to
alter the ways in which theyre trying to learn.
Formative assessment is, at bottom, an endsmeans process in which teachers and/or students rely on assessment consequences (the
ends) to decide whether any adjustments are
warranted in what theyre doing (the means).
Its really not surprising that formative assessment works so well.
What is surprising is how few U.S. teachers
use the process.
It does work, and it can make teachers more
effective. Yet, although considerable rhetoric
has been expended in recent years calling for
teachers to employ formative assessment, its
usage in our classrooms is meager. Nonetheless, two events now taking place in American
education provide us with a unique opportunity to remedy this shortcoming. In fact, they
set the stage for a special moment when education leaders of all stripes can legitimately
advocate the use of formative assessment.
Lets briefly consider what they are.
The first event stems from adoption of the
Common Core State Standards by almost all
our states. Not surprisingly, commercial publishers are inundating U.S. educators with
instructional materials ostensibly directed at
promoting student mastery of the standards.
But lets be honest, we really wont know the
true nature of the common cores success until
the two assessment consortiathe Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College
and Careers, or PARCC, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC
complete their test-building, by the spring
of 2015. Only then will U.S. educators know
with certainty how the common core has been
operationalized, and whether students have
mastered the content.
And heres where formative assessment can
prove beneficial to the nations teachers.
Remember, formative assessment helps
students master curricular targets. Rather
than asking teachers to guess about what
the common core really means, shouldnt we
urge teachers to sharpen their instructional
skills through the use of formative assessment? Then, when the assessment-consortia
tests are released, those teachers can focus
their more potent instruction on the skills
and knowledge the tests are measuring. The
choice for educators shouldnt be between curricular guessing and becoming more instructionally skilled.
A second event thats setting the stage for
full-on advocacy of formative assessment is
the installation of more-stringent teacherevaluation procedures throughout the United
States. Spurred by federal incentives, including the Race to the Top grants, state officials
have recently adopted teacher-evaluation
systems in which student growth must be
a significant factor. Indeed, in many states,
fully 50 percent of a teachers evaluation will
hinge on student performance on state or

other achievement tests. Once again, this is
an instance where formative assessment can
help teachers.
Remember, formative assessment works.
When it is used, students learn better. By
using this assessment-rooted instructional
process, teachers can increase the test-based
achievements of their students. Regardless of
the particular array of achievement tests used
by a given state to evaluate its teachers, the
teachers who employ formative assessment
are apt to get their students to perform better
on those tests. Student growth will be demonstrated on the tests because, in fact, student
growth will have occurred.
These two stage-setting educational events
are nontrivial developments. The adoption
of the common standards and the explosion of federally initiated teacher-evaluation
programs are both likely to make whopping
differences in what goes on in our schools.
Teachers who are adept at carrying out the
formative-assessment process, therefore, will
be better positioned to deal with either of
these precedent-setting events.
This is an extraordinary moment in time
when leaders of American education can legitimately advocate that teachers should
adopt formative assessment because it will be
in teachers best interests to do so. Happily, if
teachers follow this advice, those who benefit
most will be their students.
W. James Popham is a professor emeritus in the
graduate school of education and information
studies at the University of California, Los
Angeles, and a member of the National Assessment
Governing Board, in Washington. His next book,
Evaluating Americas Teachers: Mission Possible?,
will be published by Corwin Press in April.

edweek.org
11
Published June 18, 2013, in Education Week Teacher
First Person
Gaining a New Appreciation

for Assessments
By Janelle Franco
n October, I moved to Mexico City and

started teaching at a bilingual international elementary school. I was hired as
an extra teacher, and my job was to provide English literacy support to students in
all grades, beginning in kindergarten. Naturally I thought a good place to start was
speaking with teachers and looking over
assessments.
When I asked for assessments, I was
shown work samples and project rubrics.
While these can be useful gauges of student
performance, they did not provide the details about students I was looking for. For
example, by observing in the classrooms,
I learned that teachers check and star all
work before its turned inbut these work
samples didnt show me what the students
could produce on their own, without help
from a teacher or instructional assistant.
The rubrics offered some information, but
did not include skills or knowledge directly
related to reading or writing. I learned that
there was an English reading exam given
at the end of each school year, but only the
overall score was recorded, and neither
teachers nor the school administration were
able to find the previous years scores for me.
How was I supposed to know which students needed more support? How could
I target their needs if I didnt know what
those needs were? I found myself longing for
the same grueling assessments that, when
teaching in the U.S., Id wished I didnt have
to conduct.
Mandatory assessments can be very overwhelming for teachers. In most U.S. schools,
there are numerous running records, literacy assessments, writing prompts, exams,
and other evaluations to complete during
the school year. Sometimes it seems as
though more of our time is being spent on
assessments than actually teaching. Unfortunately, the most useful are often individual assessmentsbut doing one-on-one
evaluations with 25 or 30 students takes a
lot of time. Assessments are intended to provide important information about a student,
but at a certain point you begin to wonder if
they may actually be hurting student learning.
Shaping Your Instruction

Nevertheless, feeling lost at my school in
Mexico without any knowledge of student
reading levels or phonemic awareness, I developed a very basic assessment program.
Based on the structure of my previous U.S.
school districts assessment, I created an
emergent literacy assessment for kindergarten, integrating components of the English reading curriculum used by my current
school. I also found five leveled texts and
created corresponding comprehension questions in order to do running records for students reading.
Teachers sometimes shared beforehand
which students were high and which were
low. Some teachers knew their students
abilities well, but as I discovered, some did
not. One kindergartner was said to be the
lowest in her class and not able to read at
all. It turned out that she not only knew the
letter sounds, but could decode basic words
and knew some sight words. Other students
needed support with those skills, but not
her.
There were also skills and deficits that
showed up for almost all students, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the
schools curriculum as a whole. Rhyming, for
example, was a skill that almost no kindergartners had developed. Yet when I spoke
with teachers, I found out that most thought
their students could rhyme.
Assessments give teachers insight to student learning that, when used well, shapes
their teaching. The results can be used to
differentiate whole-group, small-group, and
one-on-one instruction. They enable teachers to address students learning modalities
and teach to their strengths. When students
move on to the next grade level, assessments
can be given to next years teachers so they
too can create lessons and class structures

based on student needs, not having to start
from scratch.
At the end of each school year, my school
in Mexico uses the Gates-MacGinitie reading test in English in grades K through 6.
But assessments shouldnt just be about
testing at the end of the yearit should be
about tracking progress. This is especially
true for younger children, whose abilities
change quickly and whose teachers need
to have information throughout the school
year.
By comparison, a kindergarten teacher
I spoke with from a charter school in New
York City shared that she was required to
use the Developmental Reading Assessment three times a year to evaluate her
kindergartners. She spent approximately
15 minutes with each individual student,
and the assessments took about two weeks
of class time to complete. But they provided
the teacher with information about the students phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, understanding of print concepts, and
comprehension. Similarly, a public school in
Washington state requires bilingual kindergarten classes to use an emergent literacy
assessment three times a year and running
records in the spring. Teachers assessed the
24 students individually in both English
and Spanish. Like the teacher in New York,
these teachers received information about
students that allowed them to target specific
student needs.
Return on My Investment
It took me two whole months to finish my
basic literacy assessments in Mexico City.
Based on the results, I was able to group
students for work on particular skills, strategies, and reading levels. With only a few
months left of school, I could now focus on
supporting the specific needs of these students.
Was it worth the time? At first I couldnt
help but wonder if it would have been more
effective to just dive into working with stu-

dents right away. Assessing their strengths

and weaknesses on the fly would have given
me more teaching time. But the assessments
proved to be extremely helpful for planning
small-group instruction. I was able to group
students based on needs and focus instruction to best support their learning. Now that
we are at the end of the year and I have seen
students progress, I would say that the assessments certainly paid off.
I have often heard teachers comment that
they wished they didnt have required assessments. But without them, would teachers be able to differentiate to the same extent? Would there be accountability? Would
the norm become what I walked into in the
school in Mexico City? Ideally there should
be a balance between excessive assessment
done at the expense of actually teaching and
neglecting assessment altogether. But that
balance can be hard to find. Maybe running
records and other required assessments are
like everything else in the world: You dont
truly appreciate them until you dont have
them. And perhaps when I eventually make
it back to the States, I will be right back to
wishing I had fewer assessments to conduct.
Janelle Franco has taught in Seattle, New York,
Argentina, and Mexico. She is interested in how
literacy practices are shaped by culture.
edweek.org
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resources
Assessment for Learning: What Policymakers Should Know

About Formative Assessment
http://www.wested.org/resources/assessment-for-learning-what-policymakers-should-know-aboutformative-assessment/
Martin Orland, Jan Anderson
WestEd, April 2013
Criteria for High-Quality Assessment

http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/publications/pubs/847
Linda Darling-Hammond, Joan Herman, James Pellegrino, Jamal Abedi, J. Lawrence Aber, Eva
Baker, Randy Bennett, Edmund Gordon, Edward Haertel, Kenji Hakuta, Andrew Ho, Robert Lee
Linn, P. David Pearson, James Popham, Lauren Resnick, Alan H. Schoenfeld, Richard Shavelson,
Lorrie A. Shepard, Lee Shulman, Claude M. Steele
Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (Stanford University), Center for Research on
Student Standards and Testing (University of California at Los Angeles), and Learning Sciences
Research Institute, (University of Illinois at Chicago), June 2013
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing

http://www.cse.ucla.edu/
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers

http://www.parcconline.org/
Professional Development on Formative Assessment:

Insights From Research and Practice
http://www.wested.org/resources/professional-development-on-formative-assessment-insightsfrom-research-and-practice/?doing_wp_cron=1379964740.5660550594329833984375
Elise Trumbull, Nancy Gerzon
WestEd, April 2013
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/
Understanding Formative Assessment: Insights from Learning Theory

and Measurement Theory
http://www.wested.org/resources/understanding-formative-assessment-insights-from-learningtheory-and-measurement-theory/
Andrea Lash, Elise Trumbull
WestEd, April 2013
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Education WeeK Spotlight on MATH Instruction

On The Changing State of Assessment

Published September 11, 2013, in Education Week

common core: a steep climb

One Districts Common-Core

photo by Jared Soares for Education Week

6 Test-Driving the Common Core

taring at multicolored rows of names and numbers on

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instruction went well last school year and which

photo by Jared Soares for Education Week

Teachers from Stuart-Hobson

begins, she scrolls through year-end test scores

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This year, the district hopes to spread and

Stories Within the Numbers

What this comes down to is building school

teachers and principals are starting to pay off.

proficiency rose from 43 percent to 47 percent.

Principal Clemens said as she reviewed those

Preparing for New Year

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One comfort for Ms. McNair-Lee: Mikels

There is much to do, and already the big

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Assess for Common Core Success.

Transform with confidence.

Prepare with online assessments that

Make progress with an online testing platform.

Benchmarks. Gain valuable feedback about

A Student-Friendly Interface. Special tools help students

Progress towards excellence.

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Published March 27, 2013, in Education Week

Focus On: Engineering

New NAEP Demands

nderstanding the mathematical

ran noted there is little research on how well

items than have previously been used in

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Published June 12, 2013, in Education Week Digital Directions

Test-Driving the Common Core

ore than a million students across

than having them all in computer labs.

Preparing Test Administrators

school class of 34 students taking the test in a

People are stepping back and saying we are not

anced pilot test in April.

People are stepping back and saying we are

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Assessing With Intent

Published April 8, 2013, in Education Week

o understand formative assessment,

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field discusses teaching and learning in a way

had gathered drew on lessons theyd learned

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Published June 20, 2013, in Education Week Curriculum Matters Blog

Experts Urge States To Stay Course

bevy of heavy-hitting assessment

The assessment scholars chose the Council

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Helping Students and Teachers

Testlets. These short assessments measure student