Can a State Test Inform Instruction?
The Typical, the Improbable, and the Possibilities in the Messy Middle When I’m participating in meetings with state leaders, district and school educators, parents, or other stakeholders who want t…
Read MoreCenterLine Blog
The Rocky Landscape of Validity Arguments
Considering Validity Arguments within the Context of Effective Communication Educational stakeholders are often skeptical that the information local and state assessment systems produce is trustworthy…
Read More
Boosting the Signal Through the Noise
Lessons Learned about Effective Communication from the 2022 Brian Gong Colloquium In a time of elevated confusion and mistrust, it’s never been more important to communicate clearly and effectivel…
Read More
Selecting the Right Assessments to Monitor School Recovery from the Pandemic
Assessment Selection is Like Picking the Right Golf Club In a previous post, I (Juan) argued for the importance of a variety of tools in your assessment toolbox to help monitor recovery efforts as we …
Read More
Monitoring COVID Recovery Efforts
Educational Assessments are Simply Tools in Your Toolbox “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Read More
Lead with the Reports
What I Learned About Creating Effective Test Score Reports From the Great Ron Hambleton Sadly, one of the giants in the field of educational measurement has recently passed away – Dr.
Read More
2022 Summer Internships: Improving Educational Assessment and Accountability
After two productive but virtual summers, we are looking forward to working side-by-side with our new group of summer interns to support the future of educational assessment and accountability through…
Read More
Advancing Contemporary Validity Theory and Practice
Based on Remarks Given During a Town Hall Session at the 2022 NCME Conference I was honored to participate in a validity “town hall” at last week’s NCME conference with Suzanne Lane, my co-autho…
Read More
In Search of the “Just Right” Connection Between Curriculum and Assessment
Considering Options Between Curriculum-Specific and Curriculum-Agnostic State Assessment State summative assessments are intentionally designed to be curriculum-agnostic.
Read More
California, Here We Come!
The Center Welcomes the Return of In-Person AERA and NCME Conferences After two years of virtual conferences, meetings, and just about everything else, Center professionals are excited to gather in Sa…
Read More
What’s in a Name? Sometimes, Quite a Bit
Considering the Effects of COVID-19 Disruptions on Identifying Schools for Supports Under ESSA Following a two-year hiatus, states must restart their school accountability systems required under ESSA …
Read More
Addressing the Problem with Problems
Part 2: How Can Education Agencies Construct Clear and Well-Defined Problem Statements? In Part 1 we addressed the problem with trying to rush forward with silver bullet solutions that gloss over clea…
Read More
Addressing the Problem with Problems
Part 1: Searching for Solutions to the Challenges of Education Policy and Practice As H.L. Mencken stated, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Read More
But Will It Work in Practice?
Practical Challenges to the Use of Through-Year Assessment for Accountability The interest in using through-year assessment systems in place of traditional end-of-year state summative assessments has …
Read More
Supporting A Principled Approach to Restarting School Accountability in Spring 2022
Operational Best Practices for Accountability Recently, my colleague Chris Domaleski reminded us of the complexity associated with restarting school accountability in Spring 2022.
Read More
Finding the Right Mix
Adapting Toolkits to Support Assessment System Audits Many local and state education agencies strive to develop assessment systems that can be considered “balanced” along a variety of design dimen…
Read More
Comparisons Matter: Considering What Recovery Is
Now is the Time to Begin Preparing for the Reporting of Spring 2022 Assessment Results The question about the pandemic impact has largely been answered – it’s bad (e.g., Betebenner et al.
Read More
A Principled Approach to Accountability in 2022
Four Principles to Guide State Decisions about ESSA Accountability Systems A large part of the work my colleagues and I do at the Center is focused on helping our clients solve hard problems.
Read More