Improving Accountability Through Authentic Community Engagement
Systems work best when they’re shaped by authentic input from the people they serve, but states and districts make key mistakes in gathering feedback.
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Does School Accountability Have to Be So Complicated?
We can and should build simpler systems. The trick is striking the right balance between complexity and simplicity.
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Building Professional Learning Communities
How my bicycle paceline taught me the seven things teachers need most in their professional learning communities.
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Data, Data, Everywhere. Why So Hard to Use?
States have an abundance of education data. But to use it well, states need good data management practices.
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A Formative Assessment Journey
As she takes a new job at the Center, with new challenges to explore, an expert finds herself in the unsettling and exciting role of learner.
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Consider Backward Assessment Design
If an assessment is meant to help teachers get insight into student learning and adjust their instruction, test designers must start with the end in mind.
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School Accountability Is Broken
It’s time to create school accountability systems that recognize the unique roles and responsibilities of states, districts and schools.
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Towards Coherence in Assessment Systems
As the pandemic ends, different types of tests tell different stories about student achievement. Key shifts in thinking and action can build more coherence.
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Building Innovative Assessments in an Era of Accountability
After Georgia pulled out of a federal assessment pilot, the state’s testing chief reflects on the policy changes necessary to support real test improvement.
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How to Improve School Accountability Now
We don’t refute calls for more sweeping reform, but we must take swift action to make school accountability work better right now.
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Promoting Equity Through Accountability System Design
States can use accountability system design as a lever for equity in student outcomes and opportunities, but 5 common barriers get in the way.
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What is Text Dependent Analysis?
Teaching students to analyze complex text is crucial in the age of misinformation. Our comprehensive new toolkit on text dependent analysis can help.
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How to Choose Local Assessments
Choosing local assessments can be tricky. A new guide walks district leaders through the questions they should ask and the evidence they should request.
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4 Key Questions States Should Ask About College- and Career-Readiness
States must reconsider their content standards, assessments, and testing practices to keep up with two important trends in college- and career-readiness.
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Perfect Test Comparability Is a Sign of Failure
The federal innovative assessment pilot has hobbled the testing improvements it aimed to promote. We can change that by rethinking test comparability.
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Tension Between Educational Measurement and K-12 Assessment
There are striking disconnects in our work that can affect the impact our field can have on K-12 learning, educational measurement, and accountability.
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What Happens to Performance Assessment If We Use It for Accountability?
Those who promote using performance assessment for accountability may want to stop and consider exactly what they want to argue for.
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Face It: Tests Have Consequences
An assessment’s negative or positive consequences are just as important as other dimensions of assessment quality, and should be part of test validity evaluations.
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