On April 3, 2017, sixteen states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia submitted their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state accountability plans to either the US Department of…

"The Right Trajectory" brings to the forefront an often-overlooked voice in the debate about new state assessments developed in consortia: that of the best teachers in the country. This research suggests, despite challenges still to overcome, that these front-line experts believe that the new consortia tests are an improvement on the…

Portfolios are the centerpiece of Vermont's statewide assessment program in mathematics. Portfolio scores in the first two years were not reliable enough to permit the reporting of student-level results, but increasing the number of readers or the number of portfolio pieces is not operationally feasible. (SLD)

This booklet is designed to help parents and community members answer questions about assessment in the context of the Vermont Framework of Standards, the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1997, and other statewide initiatives. Assessment is changing in Vermont in response to new legislative mandates that call for standards-based assessment…

This collection of materials provides a rationale for including all students with disabilities in statewide assessments and offers guidance for Vermont educators implementing the Vermont Assessment Program. Three reasons for inclusion are presented and supported with statistics, excerpts from the law, and research findings. The reasons for…

Since 1988, Vermont has been developing an innovative performance assessment program that relies substantially on portfolios of student work. This interim report presents findings about the reliability of scores from the first statewide implementation of the portfolio program in the 1991-92 school year. The focus is not on program impact as an…

In the initial article by Edward Roeber, performance assessment is defined as an exercise in which the student demonstrates specific skills and competencies rather than selecting one of several predetermined answers to an exercise. Such as assessment contains four components: (1) a reason for the assessment; (2) a particular peformance to be…

Accountability is high on the education reform agenda as taxpayers, business leaders, and elected officials demand proof of results. Although several states show promising improvements in their accountability arrangements, none has in place a comprehensive system. Such a system includes three fundamental accountability elements: (1) clear and…

The articles in this bibliography represent holdings to date in the area of assessment alternatives in mathematics. The annotated articles are intended mainly to stimulate thinking and provide ideas. Some of the entries are formal assessments and are intended mainly for the classroom. Other articles discuss performance based assessment and other…

The 1992-93 school year saw the second statewide implementation of the Vermont portfolio-assessment program, and RAND continued its ongoing evaluation of the program's implementation, effects, and data quality. While the first year's study found evidence of the impact of the assessment program and low reliability of portfolio scoring, this year's…

This article examines one of the challenges to the integration of classroom and large-scale portfolio assessment, a challenge posed by the use of a student's classroom portfolio for large-scale assessment of his or her individual competencies. When work is composed with the support of peers, teachers, and parents, whose work is being judged? The…

The results of an evaluation of Vermont's statewide assessment initiative are presented, with information about the implementation of the program, its effects on educational practice, the analytic challenge presented by the portfolio scoring process, the reliability and validity of portfolio scores, and the tensions between assessment and…

The shortcomings of standardized testing as the predominant form of student assessment in the United States are reviewed, and the use and potential benefits of portfolio assessment are explored. Children's educational experiences and their future job prospects and standards of living are being decided by test scores. Moreover, these test scores…

Since 1988 the Vermont Department of Education has been developing an innovative statewide performance assessment program. In 1990, the RAND Corporation began evaluating the Vermont assessment program, focusing specifically on the portfolio component of its assessment system. This report presents results from the evaluation in the 1992-93 school…

In 1991-92 Vermont initiated a statewide portfolio assessment program in mathematics and writing in grades 4 and 8. An evaluation of the program found mixed results--although the portfolio scores were unreliable for individual or school-level reporting and teachers had concerns about implementation, the assessment had marked positive effects on…