This is the fourth in a series of posts by our 2020 summer interns and their mentors based on their project and the assessment and accountability issues they addressed this summer. Maura O’Riordan, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, worked with Chris Domaleski to develop guidance to help states better understand the impact of assessment accommodations on the meaning and interpretation of test scores.

This is the third in a series of posts by our 2020 summer interns and their mentors based on their project and the assessment and accountability issues they addressed this summer. Alexandra Stone, from the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, worked with Carla Evans on analyses to evaluate the effects on student achievement in the NH PACE program.

Those responsible for summative classroom assessment in 2020-2021 face a number of daunting challenges, not the least of which is that the definition of “classroom” is wide and varied. 

As school restarts this fall, many teachers and students are facing different learning environments than the typical back-to-school realities – including when it comes to formative classroom assessment. 

COVID has reshaped teaching and learning in ways that could make a teacher or other educational leader wonder—what’s the same and what’s different about classroom assessment in a remote or hybrid learning environment? 

This is the second in a series of posts by our 2020 summer interns and their mentors based on their project and the assessment and accountability issues they addressed this summer. Sandy Student, from the University of Colorado Boulder, and Brian Gong get things started with a two-part series describing their work analyzing the validity arguments for states’ large-scale Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) assessments.

Many changes are being considered for schools in 2020-2021 and beyond in the era of COVID-19 and disruptions to schooling. Some of these include later school-year starts, blended instructional models for all students, full-on virtual delivery of content, and an extended school year to account for lost instructional time. Add to this the very real social and emotional needs of both students and adults and we need to be holistically considering school restart.

Once again this year, we are pleased to share posts on CenterLine by our summer interns and their mentors. These posts are based on the project they undertook and the assessment and accountability issues they addressed this summer.

The Center’s Executive Director Scott Marion was asked recently to offer a short response to the question,“How can parents and policymakers know whether schools are making up for lost learning and addressing individual needs?” as part of a series on what it will take to reopen schools amid the pandemic sponsored by The Center on Reinventing Public Education, in partnership with T

We cannot know what classrooms and teaching will look like in the coming school year, but that doesn’t need to prevent states from planning ahead for accurately equating spring 2021 summative assessments. In making that statement we assume that those tests will happen and their blueprints and administration will be unaltered while acknowledging that the conditions of learning may be very different than in the past.

Since mid-March, Center for Assessment associates and highly-respected guest authors have written multiple CenterLine posts and other papers addressing key aspects of assessment and accountability. We have been wrestling with this question since COVID-19 disrupted the 2019-2020 school year and forced the cancellation of spring 2020 state assessments: How can assessment best be used to support teachers and students during the 2020-2021 school year? Our ideas and advice over the past several months about assessment in 2020-2021 crystallized into the following key takeaways: