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

Measuring Student Success Skills: A Review of the Literature on Student Agency

Student agency is a crucial skill, but schools struggle to teach and assess it. This review explores its assessment implications.
January 6, 2025

We’re Better Together!

Collaboration defined our work in 2024 and is at the heart of the Center’s philosophy. When we push one another to hone our ideas, we reach new heights.
December 18, 2024

Equity and the Accessibility Game Plan

Key strategies from the world of accessibility offer helpful guidance in advancing equity in educational testing in K12 schools.
December 11, 2024

Maryland State Department of Education Assessment and Accountability Task Force Report

A summary of the assessment and accountability recommendations issued by the Maryland Assessment and Accountability Task Force.
December 3, 2024

Test Security: Expanding Our Ideas to Support Score Integrity

Test security has typically focused on preventing, detecting and acting on irregularities. But it should also support fairness and equity.
November 13, 2024

Through-Year Assessment: The Importance of Score Reports

Score reports are crucial to a through-year assessment system. We interviewed users of Montana’s new system to see how they interpreted and planned to use information from score reports.
November 6, 2024

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.
October 30, 2024

“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.
October 23, 2024

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?
October 16, 2024

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.
October 9, 2024
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