We’re committed to helping states and school districts design and implement assessment and accountability systems that support meaningful educational outcomes and student achievement.
We help states and school districts design assessments and assessment systems that meet technical and policy goals to support student learning and for other critical uses.
We’re a leader in designing and implementing accountability systems for states and school districts to meet key federal and state requirements that also support continuous improvement efforts.
RILS offers a unique, collaborative learning opportunity for educators and assessment professionals across the country. Hear from some of our multi-year attendees about what makes the conference so special and how it helps support better assessment and accountability practices nationwide. This year’s conference focuses on Improving the Selection, Use, and Evaluation of Interim Assessments. Come join us in lovely Portsmouth, NH for a terrific learning experience—September 26-27, 2019.
This is the first in a series of CenterLine posts by our 2019 summer interns and their Center mentors based on their project and the assessment and accountability issues they addressed this summer. Brittney Hernandez from the University of Connecticut worked with Scott Marion on assessment literacy for policymakers.
In my previous glass-half-empty post, I outlined my considerable reservations with the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) component of the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Without a doubt, the public is skeptical about using machine scoring for examinees’ written responses. This skepticism makes sense because we know that machines do not score all elements of writing equally well. Machines do not “understand” creativity, irony, humor, allegory, and other literary techniques, opening them to criticism for their insufficiency in evaluating some of these more subtle qualities of writing.
This post is the last in my three-part series on competency-based grading. In Part 1, I describe the key similarities and differences between traditional, standards-based, and competency-based grading practices.
This post is Part 2 of a three-part series on competency-based grading. Part 1 described the key similarities and differences between traditional, standards-based, and competency-based grading practices.
This is the first in a three-part series on competency-based grading. I was motivated to write this series because of recent conversations about competency-based grading within my children’s school district. I’ve noticed confusion about terms, misinformation, propaganda, and a general lack of high-quality resources on the subject. My goal for this series is to help guide honest and transparent conversations about key issues and best practices by:
Earlier this month, the Center for Assessment held its 15th annual colloquium, the first named in honor of Center co-founder, Brian Gong. The Brian Gong Colloquium is a two-day meeting arranged by the Center for Assessment to discuss select topics of importance in testing and accountability with recognized experts.
The 2019 meeting focused on the present and future use of learning analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in educational assessment, and highlighted topics including:
How do you select an interim assessment that will meet your specific goals and needs?
What assessment characteristics are necessary to support a particular test use, and what evidence of quality should be evaluated to determine whether that use is supported?
How do you know if educators and schools are appropriately interpreting and using assessment results?
Each June, the Center team and our partners gather with others around the country for the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) National Conference on Student Assessment to share our work on K-12 assessment and accountability matters.
CCSSO has said about this year’s upcoming event, “the goal of the 2019 conference is to give states a forum to share the best practices, strategies, research studies, resources, and innovative methods when measuring student learning and holding districts and schools accountable for educational progress.”
This post is the follow-up to my previous post discussing the realities of innovation in large-scale educational assessment. In Part 1, I defined innovation as a change that not only improved an existing process or product, but also was found to have solved a problem or meet a need and, therefore, was adopted and used; that is, it changed the way things were done in the field.
The Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) ostensibly offers states the flexibility needed to “establish, operate, and evaluate an innovative assessment system” with the goal of using that educational assessment to meet the ESSA academic assessment and statewide accountability system requirements.
In the seacoast region of New Hampshire, we are enjoying the kind of crisp early autumn temps that might call for a light sweater, and the foliage reveals just a hint of the color that draws ‘leaf peepers’ to the region each year. But it wasn’t just the postcard-perfect scene that drew more than 80 education and assessment leaders from around the country to Portsmouth on September 26-27, 2019. The Center’s annual Reidy Interactive Lecture Series (RILS) offered an opportunity for those assembled to learn and contribute ide
