Our Assessment Systems Should Reflect the Purposes of Public Education

Now is the time to begin redesign

Schools are responsible for preparing graduates to succeed after high school—in post-secondary education, in the workplace, and as engaged, thriving citizens. Americans have long recognized this broad mission of public education, but we don’t have good ways of measuring schools’ progress toward fulfilling it. Now, as debates about the value of public education intensify, we must focus on finding those ways.

Numerous organizations and commissions have issued calls for rethinking how we measure the performance of K-12 schools in the U.S., especially at the high school level. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released a Research and Development Agenda to transform secondary education, which included a call for “assessment and accountability reforms that measure what matters for student success beyond narrow academic metrics.”  

The National Governors Association’s Let’s Get Ready! initiative aims to “prepare our students for workforce readiness, civic engagement, and well-being” in part through broader measures of student readiness. And the Aspen Institute described three primary purposes of education: workforce preparation, cultivation of a sense of self, and preparation for civic life.

These efforts reflect a growing recognition that schools serve multiple purposes. But although states and districts routinely measure students’ academic performance, there is limited national or state data on other factors that contribute to students’ long-term success and well-being. We need to re-examine how communities’ expectations for schools are reflected in the data we collect and the signals we send about what counts as success.  

What Are Schools For?

Federal and state assessment policy has focused on student achievement in a small number of academic subjects. Although the framers of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) emphasized the need for college and career readiness, the accountability rules required states to prioritize mathematics and English language arts assessment. 

But data gathered from teachers, parents, students, and the general public shows support for a more holistic approach to student development, one that includes providing supports for students’ social, emotional, and civic learning in addition to core academic instruction. Employers highlight the importance of competencies like collaboration, communication, resilience, and adaptability—skills that go beyond what traditional achievement tests measure.

As these data show, Americans broadly endorse attending to outcomes beyond academic test scores. Additionally, competencies like self-regulation and social perspective-taking predict later success in college and the workplace. 

A key takeaway from all these findings is that we need to avoid zero-sum thinking about student learning outcomes—that is, attention to factors like interpersonal skill development should not be considered a distraction from college and career preparation. 

How Do We Know if Schools Are Achieving Their Purposes?

Despite the convergence of scientific evidence with the views of employers, educators, and other groups, we currently lack high-quality data to monitor how well schools are addressing this broad set of competencies and conditions. Large-scale assessment systems, which include state accountability systems and low-stakes state or local data collection, typically include a limited set of indicators. 

Questions about whether these systems are capturing the right information are becoming more urgent in light of AI advances, labor market shifts, and rising concerns about media fragmentation and civic polarization—all of which have implications for K-12 education. So it’s a good time to reflect on how our assessment systems can better meet the needs and priorities of students, educators, families, and society. 

Of course, incorporating new measures into large-scale assessment systems is challenging and poses some risks. Every additional measure increases the cost and time required to collect and report on the data, and a system with a large number of measures could send unclear signals about what matters most. To guide future efforts to broaden these systems in ways that will benefit learners and the public, I offer a few broad recommendations.

Engage the Community in Identifying Goals and Setting Priorities

These efforts should begin with conversations about what key constituents—families, employers, educators, and students—want from their public schools. Authentic engagement can help ensure that any new data collection aligns with the needs, priorities and values of local communities. 

Ensuring a diversity of perspectives in these conversations is critical for generating buy-in and avoiding political blowback. Examples of state and local efforts to design new assessment or accountability systems, such as those conducted in Chicago Public Schools, Utah, and Maryland provide models of possible approaches.

Monitor Both Competencies and Conditions

High-quality information about the full range of competencies students need to succeed and thrive can enhance decision-making—whether by families engaging in school choice, district leaders identifying schools that need support, or state policymakers shaping investments. 

Additionally, data on the school conditions (also known as opportunity to learn) that help students develop those competencies is also critical for informing decisions about funding and other resources. A growing evidence base on how people learn indicates that student learning benefits from conditions like rich curricula and supportive learning environments where they can form good relationships with students and peers.

For instance, education leaders might ask what information on conditions for learning—such as data on civic-learning opportunities, apprenticeships, or mental health professionals in schools—is needed to complement outcome data and provide a fuller picture of schools’ contributions to student development. 

Explore Innovative Data-collection Methods

As discussed in a recent Center paper, one significant barrier to expanded large-scale data collection systems is the lack of high-quality, low-cost measures of many of the competencies and conditions schools prioritize. Innovative development efforts supported by research institutions, assessment companies, and states (such as those that have adopted Portraits of a Graduate) offer opportunities for states and districts to pilot different approaches to learn how they work. 

Avoid the Temptation to Be Comprehensive

Measuring all the competencies and conditions that communities care about would result in high costs and overly burdensome data collection. Rather than aiming for comprehensiveness, system developers should consider approaches that clearly signal what matters most and adopt measures that balance importance with feasibility. 

For instance, although system leaders might not want to add a new civics test, they could incorporate a low-cost measure (such as data from a student survey) that sends a clear signal about priorities. States and districts should also consider trying out at least some indicators at the school or classroom level, for continuous-improvement purposes, before incorporating them into large-scale data collection. 

Beware High-stakes Uses

Decades of research make it clear that attaching high stakes to performance measures can lead to unintended and sometimes undesirable consequences. These risks are especially great for newly developed measures that have not been subjected to extensive testing. Moreover, when measures are used to inform decisions about students, educators, schools, or other entities, they must have sufficient evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness to support those uses. 

Given the nascent state of large-scale measurement of nonacademic competencies, it is crucial that we emphasize lower-stakes uses while taking a systematic approach to evaluating their technical quality and using this information to guide revisions.

Assessment systems send powerful signals about what we expect from our schools. If we want schools to fulfill their broad mission, our systems for monitoring and reporting on their performance must adapt. Improved assessment systems will provide crucial evidence for gauging schools’ progress at preparing young people to succeed and thrive in all aspects of their lives.

This work will not be easy or quick—it requires sustained investment, innovations in assessment design, collaboration, and a willingness to rethink long-standing practices—but that’s all the more reason to get started now.