The 2019 NAEP results (National Assessment of Educational Progress) were released last week to much consternation, except perhaps in Mississippi and Washington, D.C., where improved results were celebrated.

Nationally, results were up slightly in fourth-grade math, flat in eighth-grade math, and down in both fourth and eighth-grade reading. These results continue a disturbing lack of progress over the last decade. 

Interim assessments may have a role in balanced assessment systems, but that role is not conferred by title. It is conferred by logic and evidence tied to particular purposes and uses. 

In my previous glass-half-empty post, I outlined my considerable reservations with the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) component of the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA). 

I was an early supporter and promoter of the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), but I now have serious doubts about the viability of the IADA and its ability to support deep and meaningful educational reform.

“We just administered our third assessment in the past five years.” 

“That’s nothing; we’re on our fifth assessment in the past four years.” 

I wish these were fictional statements, but as one of the coordinators of a working group of state assessment leaders, I regularly hear stories like these from many of our 40+ state participants. 

While Center staff and 2018 summer interns share their work at the NCME conference, planning is well underway for our 2019 summer internship program.  This summer, the Center will welcome six advanced doctoral students who will work with the Center’s professionals on projects with direct implications for state and national educational policy. Each intern will work with a Center mentor on one major project throughout the summer.

It may sound innovative to claim that commercial interim assessments support instruction, but simply saying it doesn’t make it so. 

I was recently invited by Future Focused Education to share my thoughts on teacher evaluation for their blog. I contributed two posts about the insurmountable challenges of state-mandated teacher evaluation and the promise of coherent locally-based support and evaluation systems.

The Center for Assessment celebrated its 20^th anniversary in September with many long-time friends, and the celebration was highlighted by our 20^th Reidy Interactive Lecture Series (RILS) where Center professionals reflected on the past and offered a vision for the future. 

“Train-the-trainers” is commonly employed as an approach for attempting to spread new learning from individuals who attended a professional development experience to others who did not attend. Unfortunately, this model often works like the children’s game of “telephone”, where the message is mangled by the time it gets around the circle. I am struck that “train-the-trainers” continues to be so popular with so little evidence that it works to improve the implementation of complex knowledge and skills.