Assessment

Assessment

Assessment provides crucial insight into student learning. In a well-balanced system of large-scale summative, interim/curriculum-embedded and formative assessments, leaders at each level-state, district, school and classroom-can use assessment results to support learning. We help leaders identify their highest-priority assessment uses and design systems to meet their needs.


Recent Assessment Projects

National leadership on state assessment practice

We facilitate ongoing conversations with 40-plus states on the technical and policy issues that support good practice in statewide assessment. The collaborative is based at the Council of Chief State School Officers; our facilitation is part of our longstanding partnership with CCSSO.

Through-year design

Montana wanted to make its assessments more useful for instruction. We are supporting the state in building a through-year system that yields results several times a year, with the intent to provide information for classroom teachers to gain insight into student learning before the end of the year.

21st century competencies

The International Baccalaureate explored ways to define and assess hard-to-measure competencies like creativity and ethical thinking. To support IB, we produced a series of literature reviews defining these complex skills and providing recommendations for assessing these skills.


Recent Assessment Blog Posts and Papers

2005 Reidy Interactive Lecture Series

Wrestling With High School Assessment and Accountability September 29th – 30th Agenda Session IOverview of High School Goals and AssessmentsMark […]
September 30, 2005

Effect of Minimum Cell Sizes and Confidence Interval Sizes for Special Education Subgroups

Reports modeling results for several states of the effect of various sizes of minimum-n and confidence intervals on No Child […]
September 26, 2005

Minimum n and Confidence Intervals: Proficiency and Exclusion of Special Education Students

The effect of varying confidence interval size and minimum-n size for the special education subgroup on adequate-yearly-progress (AYP) determinations and […]
September 26, 2005

Increasing Text Complexity: A Discussion

The research for this article goes beyond the typical readability formulas used in test and textbook development. Factors that influence […]
August 24, 2005

Roles of Local Assessments in State Accountability Systems

This presentation provides an overview of how local assessments may be used in relation to state accountability systems, and outlines […]
June 21, 2005

Using Student Data for School Accountability: An Overview

This presentation provides an overview of different types of school performance, including student growth, and introduces key issues in defining […]
June 20, 2005

Establishing a Value Table for Alaska

An explanation of the process used to generate a value table recommended for use in measuring growth in Alaska.
June 14, 2005

Measuring Student Growth Through Value Tables

Slides of a paper presenting introductory concepts of value tables, presented at the Council of Chief State School Officers’ Large […]
June 14, 2005

2004 Reidy Interactive Lecture Series

Incorporating Measures of Student Growth Into State Accountability Systems October 7th – 8th Agenda Session I Validity Considerations When Measuring […]
October 8, 2004

Vertically-Articulated Content Standards

This presentation outlines some basic requirements and methods for creating vertical score scales. It also discusses how to adapt alignment […]
October 7, 2004