The Education Commission of the States’ Comparison on State Summative Assessments was just updated and now includes information on the assessments that each state is using to meet federal requirements in 2017-18. As a condition of receiving federal funds, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires state education agencies to implement Read more
How do state and district leaders cut through the clutter to make decisions on assessments for student success? Finally, there is unprecedented support on how to answer this question with the release of Ten Principles for Building a High-Quality System of Assessments, a collaborative effort led by Jobs for the Read more
Educators seeking to measure student attainment of 21st century skills and deeper learning are increasingly looking to performance assessment as a way to assess student performance meaningfully. ESSA’s innovative testing pilot and new test-optional college admissions policies are removing roadblocks that once stood in the way of widescale adoption of Read more
As states, districts, and schools are expanding instruction to include the competencies associated with college, career, and civic readiness, they are also developing ways to measure mastery of these deeper learning and higher-order thinking skills. These measures include performance assessments, such as portfolios, capstone projects, and senior defenses, alongside classroom Read more
For those wondering what ESSA’s Innovative Testing Pilot might bring, look no further than New Hampshire. The Obama administration granted New Hampshire a first-of-its-kind waiver in 2015, allowing a subset of school districts to try out new exams made up of “complex, multi-part tasks that ask students to apply what Read more
The Meadows Center at the University of Texas at Austin has released a piece outlining 10 evidence-based policies and practices for high-quality assessment in schools, along with the research supporting them. These policies/practices include the following: School leadership ensures that teachers have a shared understanding of the curriculum and standards Read more
New data from researchers at Stanford, based on some 300 million elementary-school test scores across more than 11,000 school districts, reveals the school districts where children are showing the most growth. The results do not follow conventional wisdom. Districts with high growth are scattered across the country, in contrast with Read more
Throughout this year, the Bush Institute has interviewed education leaders at length about what school accountability means to them. The result is the launch of The “A” Word: Accountability–The Dirty Word of Education Reform. Throughout this interview series, recognized leaders identify why accountability practices matter and how they have used Read more
Against a backdrop of the opportunities provided by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the challenges for education posed by the new federal administration, the Annenberg Institute for School Report has released an issue of Voices in Urban Education (VUE) and an online supplement that proposes performance assessment as Read more
There is a communication gap that creates a significant disconnect in how parents think their children are doing in school versus reality. In its second national survey, Learning Heroes found that 9 in 10 parents think their children are performing at or above grade level in math and reading — Read more
The Annenberg Institute’s new issue of VUE, Performance Assessment: Fostering the Learning of Teachers and Students proposes an alternative to standardized testing, based on a performance assessment approach, which is personalized and rigorous, and improves teaching and learning – thereby benefiting both students and teachers. Against a backdrop of the Read more
Tests are one important tool state and education leaders, teachers and parents rely on to help schools ensure students are on track for learning what they need for success. Tests signal the knowledge and skills that are deemed most important, show how schools and students are progressing, and help identify Read more
As states and districts work to develop new accountability systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act, six California districts who received federal waivers under the Obama administration are getting the first hints of how more holistic accountability systems might work. Researchers and district officials discussed the first evaluations of the Read more
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opens up new possibilities for more meaningful approaches to assessing student learning and teacher and school success. The law broadens the concept of student learning, requiring that assessments measure “higher order thinking skills and understanding,” and explicitly allowing the use of multiple assessments – Read more
In 15 years of increasing average test scores, black-white and Hispanic-white student achievement gaps continue to close, and Asian students are pulling away from whites in both math and reading achievement. For the improving groups, these long-term trends may be a major educational success story. In stark contrast, Hispanic and Read more
Chester E. Finn, Jr., distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, recently reflected on the illusion of college readiness for National Affairs. Excerpts from his piece appear below: Our K-12 education system has a transparency problem, and our higher-education system is complicit. While some American Read more