Quality assessments are essential elements of impactful school accountability, academic rigor and effective classroom instruction that prepares students for postsecondary success. However, parents and teachers have long argued that children are over-tested and that valuable instructional time is lost “teaching to the test.”
Simple and effective policy changes can ensure assessments serve their real purpose: measuring student achievement and providing actionable results that improve instruction and student learning. Fewer, Better Tests policy solutions give teachers more time to teach while ensuring that parents and teachers have access to easy-to-understand information to help their students.
Assessments can be powerful tools to strengthen learning, and every state can make significant improvements to its assessment system.
Coherent systems of assessments include an annual standards-based state assessment of learning and locally selected assessments for learning.
| Assessments of Learning | State summative assessments of learning are used for state accountability and reporting. |
| Assessments for Learning | Local flexibility allows schools and districts to administer assessments for learning to ensure students have gained the knowledge necessary to advance to the next grade and demonstrated their mastery of content standards on the annual state assessment. These assessments could include screenings, diagnostics and benchmark assessments that align to state standards and serve as tools to assist teachers in day-to-day decision making. |
COVID-19 has disrupted virtually every school and family in the country. In spring 2020, educators and families nationwide navigated a heroic transition to distance learning. Now schools are fluctuating between in-person and virtual learning to meet the needs of their students and communities. Through all this, reliable assessments and data are more crucial than ever before.
Many students will emerge from the crisis just fine—but we cannot forget those with limited internet access or whose parents struggled to balance jobs and schooling. Disadvantaged students already face an uneven playing field, and states cannot afford to let this crisis make it worse. In spring 2021, states need to administer comprehensive end-of-year assessments to all public-school students to ensure every student is counted and to help schools offer extra support for the students who need it the most.
Comprehensive end-of-year assessments are one essential part of a broader toolkit for improving learning and opportunities for each student. These assessments provide powerful, irreplaceable data which are vital to understanding and addressing the impacts of COVID-19 on student learning, especially for students who are historically underserved
View More2020-2021 is a school year unlike any other. Consequently, the state must plan for equitable access to assessments for students’ various instructional environments—in-person, blended and fully remote. This document examines six areas states should consider as they create 2020-2021 assessments.
View MoreSix 2016 surveys conducted by the Winston Group and Hill Research Consultants provide insight into how parents and teachers across the nation perceive testing.