Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills: A Focus on Intercultural Understanding
Intercultural understanding is an important 21st century skill for students, but assessing it is challenging. These guiding principles can help.
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“This Test Is Instructionally Useful.” Where’s the Evidence?
Companies often say their assessments are instructionally useful, but they rarely provide evidence to support those claims.
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Assessment Consequences Matter: A Look Back at RILS 2024
Our annual conference asked an important question: How do we minimize the unintended negative consequences of assessment for individuals and systems?
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Redistributing Responsibility for Teachers’ Assessment Literacy
Understanding assessment and using it well should be the responsibility of the entire school community, not just its teachers.
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Is Your Accountability System Working the Way It Should?
Few states evaluate their systems to see if they’re working well. We examined one state’s consistency in identifying the right schools for support.
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What Do We Know About Innovative Assessment?
Are states creating tests that are truly innovative? To answer that, we took a look at the characteristics, process and purposes of innovation.
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Shifts in Student Enrollment: Should They Affect Test Score Interpretations?
Schools that experience pronounced enrollment shifts should consider their impact when interpreting achievement patterns over time.
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We Make Assessment Literacy Too Hard!
Insights from behavioral economics can help us do right by teachers and stop blaming them for struggling to understand assessment data.
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The Importance of Guiding Principles in Education
Education systems like accountability and assessment are complex, so it’s essential to create a set of principles that serve as a north star in their design.
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Bringing a Fresh Perspective to Assessment Purpose
Two California school districts conducted reviews of their required assessments. In the second of a two-part series, we share what they learned.
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Eliminating Unnecessary District-Required Assessments
Two California school districts conducted reviews of their required assessments. In the first of a two-part series, we share what they learned.
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Let’s Take Stock of High-Stakes Testing
A debate has roiled for decades about using educational assessments for consequential decisions. We’ll dive into that debate at RILS 2024.
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No Escape from Artificial Intelligence in Education
AI is rapidly reshaping knowledge work and professional learning in education. These changes were on full display at this year’s assessment conferences.
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How States Can Avoid “Cruel Optimism” in Teacher Professional Learning
States have a crucial role to play in supporting high-quality teacher learning. These three steps can help them avoid “cruel optimism.”
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Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills: A Focus on Analytical Thinking
Guidance on defining and assessing analytical thinking, a skill that’s increasingly important to students’ future success.
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Instructionally Useful Assessments: Don’t Tell Us—Show Us
Education leaders and vendors claim that many assessments are “instructionally useful.” Such claims must be highly specific, and supported by evidence.
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Assessment Data Masquerading as Instructionally Useful Information
Which kinds of tests provide information that helps teachers adjust their instruction? We outline 10 key features of instructionally useful assessments
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Stop Trying to Use Commercial Interim Tests for Instructional Purposes
The concept of “strategic abandonment” sheds light on the appropriate uses of commercial interim assessments. Instructional utility isn’t one of them.
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