Changing State Assessments Won’t Improve Student Learning

There are no shortcuts: Engage students with good teaching and meaningful content

All of us in education are frustrated by the lack of progress in improving student achievement. I know I am. I’m also frustrated because after many years of high-quality education research and practice, we have a pretty good idea of what works. Unfortunately, I see too many people attempting shortcuts instead of engaging in the hard work of school improvement. I’ll talk about the latest of these quick fixes—and urge the field to focus more intently on the things that we know work.

I’ve had many conversations with state education leaders and heard policymakers talking about the need to change their assessment (or accountability) systems to improve student achievement. Many are rightfully wondering if their students are learning, but their assessment system is preventing them from showing what they know and can do.

This is a reasonable concern, but upon closer inspection, I wonder what they think student achievement would look like if it was measured “perfectly.” Let me be clear: I’ve long advocated for state assessments to include richer demonstrations of learning, and we need the kinds of tests that engage all students. That said, this rationale for changing the assessment has a “shoot the messenger” feel to it.

Looking in the Wrong Place

We’ve seen only a couple of nefarious cases where states altered the cutoff scores for a test’s performance levels to make it appear that student performance has improved. I’m more concerned with those who, in good faith, think that changing the test will lead to improved student learning.

Changing a test to improve student achievement is like that old joke about a drunk guy who drops his keys between the bar and his car, but only looks for them under a streetlight because that’s where the light is. It makes sense to reflect on the test, but changing it doesn’t solve the problem.  

Improving student learning is hard, especially given the structures and context of schooling. But here is what we know works, based on a vast body of literature.

The Importance of the Instructional Core

As my colleagues know, I’m a big proponent of Richard Elmore’s Instructional Core (see Chapter 1) as the clearest framing for how to improve student learning at scale. Elmore postulated that the only way to do this is to improve teaching quality, student engagement, and the meaningfulness of the content students are expected to learn. You can’t just focus on one of these dimensions and expect changes in student learning: you must address all three.

Elmore also advises school and district leaders that if they are working on things other than in the “core,” their chances of improving student achievement are that much more difficult. If you haven’t read Elmore’s Instructional Core, I urge you to do so. His message is important for everyone working in education, from citizen school board members to top educational researchers.

Elmore’s framing is so simple and elegant that it makes school improvement sound easy, but it isn’t, and he never said it was. It takes intense organizational work and structures to support this work, as noted by Peurach and Russell. Structural and cultural supports include common planning time for educators, high-quality induction and mentoring programs, high-quality instructional materials with embedded assessments, supportive instructional leadership, and many other elements.

The Hard Work of Curriculum and Instruction

Many of the factors and conditions necessary to support improvement in student learning seem to be beyond the control of state leaders. But not as many as you might think. As described by my colleagues Carla Evans and Erika Landl, state leaders can take many actions to implement balanced assessment systems. That’s not the same as improving student achievement at scale, but many of the levers that state leaders can pull are similar.

Curriculum (meaningful content) and instruction (teaching quality) are two of the legs of Elmore’s instructional core. With high-quality curriculum and ambitious instruction, we expect to engage students in their learning and growth. District and school leaders have considerable control over curriculum decisions and implementation approaches. Even though the classroom door is usually closed, these leaders can also influence the quality and type of instruction enacted in their schools.

“Curriculum—what we actually teach—may be the single largest school factor that affects learning, intellectual development and college and career readiness,” Mike Schmoker, the well-known school reformer, wrote in 2011. He’s not alone. Education Professor Morgan Polikoff argues that the reason we’ve seen so little improvement in student learning, despite a substantial policy push for standards-based reform, is that we’ve largely ignored the importance of curriculum.

States Can Play a Key Role

Most states cede to local leaders the authority to choose curriculum, but such “local control” is rarely enshrined in state law. Further, the money districts use to purchase curriculum typically comes from state funds. I’m not arguing for a single statewide curriculum, but state education offices, with their capacity and convening power, can play powerful roles to support districts’ use of high-quality curricula.

We’ve seen this work in Louisiana and Mississippi. More than 15 years ago, Louisiana’s education leaders started evaluating curricular options and even created a “state model curriculum.” Districts can use the state model curriculum at no cost or purchase another curriculum from an approved list. The model curriculum also enabled the state education office to organize professional development around this limited number of curriculum options.

The research is clear that professional development in the context of the curriculum that teachers are expected to teach is more effective than offerings focused simply on abstract concepts or state standards. And guess what? Louisiana has been experiencing some of the largest gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) among states in recent years. It takes time to do the hard work well, but it can pay off if state and district leaders stick with it.

Mississippi is well known for its systematic approach to improving student achievement, especially reading. They did not do this by switching to a new state test or reaching for some other quick fix. Rather, they worked with pre-service to veteran teachers to ensure their instructional models were aligned with the science of reading.

Like Louisiana, Mississippi education leaders insisted that curricular materials paid for with state dollars had to support this research-based approach to teaching reading. We’ve all heard of the “Mississippi miracle”—except it wasn’t a miracle. It was deliberate and coherent leadership from the state level, year after year, that supported this massive improvement.

For Real Results, Do the Real Work

I’ve been at the Center for Assessment for over 22 years, and I strongly believe in the power of assessment to support student learning and school improvement. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been working on balanced assessment systems for so long. However, assessment only serves to support the real work of school improvement. The real change comes from what Robert Marzano calls a guaranteed and viable curriculum for every student and high-quality instruction.

State leaders, working alongside their district counterparts, should focus on the instructional core if they want to improve student learning, rather than relying on quick fixes.

Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages