Statewide performance assessments have gone in and out of vogue for over 30 years. While embraced as authentic representations of student work, they often prove burdensome for standardized assessment purposes. They can be a strong addition to a balanced assessment system--when implemented well for the right purposes. State policymakers looking to…

Because music teachers serve so many students, it is necessary to have some way of collecting and tracking data quickly. This article discusses several data collection tools for the music classroom.

Beginning in the 2017-2018 school year, appraisal systems in Texas, whether the state-recommended system or a locally developed system, will need to include a measure of student growth at the individual teacher level. Student growth measures how much a student progresses academically during his or her time with a particular teacher. It takes into…

The realities of the 21st-century learner require that schools and educators fundamentally change their practice. "Educators must produce college- and career-ready graduates that reflect the future these students will face. And, they must facilitate learning through means that align with the defining attributes of this generation of…

The lack of productivity of school systems stems from a number of reasons, including the way in which schools are governed. The author explains in this paper that policies from on high often work against campuses being more productive. His list includes state policies that stop districts from hiring experts to teach subjects that other educators…

The dangers of a single story in current U.S. large-scale writing assessment are that assessment practice does not align with theory and this practice has negative effects on instruction and students. In this article, I analyze the connections or lack of connections among writing theory, writing assessment, and writing instruction, critique the…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December 2015, is the latest reauthorization of one of the most influential pieces of federal education legislation, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The law had not been reauthorized since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed, and ESSA is the result of…

Although the use of portfolios to assess student performance in K-12 science classrooms and to monitor the training of preservice science teachers is increasingly common, their implementation in undergraduate science courses is still limited. The work presented here represents one in-depth example of the integration of portfolio assessment into…

The Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools provide literacy-rich, summer experiences for both the K-12 children they serve and the servant-leader interns who serve as teachers. In this article, the author expands upon the scholarship of preparing teachers to be culturally responsive pedagogues of language arts instruction by illuminating…

The teacher education literature is replete with recommendations regarding the preparation of new teachers who are equipped to face the complexities and instructional demands of their first year of teaching. Recently, teacher education programs have begun to use online assessment products to provide evidence that their teacher candidates' can…

What are other states doing to assess whether K-12 teachers are meeting the technology proficiency standards (NET) outlined by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education)? What are alternatives to the IC3 test? This question was answered by contacting state leaders and also by finding information on the Internet. Many states have an…

This article looks at the controversial starting of testing, its boycott, the subsequent years of protest and, in October 2008, the apparent end of key stage examining in England. It considers a possible alternative to the tests based on a project carried out at King's College London based on portfolio assessment.

Describes the design and implementation of a portfolio evaluation plan for teachers at North Haven, Connecticut, Public Schools, key components of which are professional development and training for both teachers and administrators. (PKP)

This handbook is designed as a quick reference for first-year teachers who find themselves in an assessment driven environment with little experience to help make sense of the language, underlying philosophy, or organizational structure of the assessment system. The handbook begins with advice on developing and evaluating effective learning…

Educators in the Fowler (California) Unified School District have found that teacher evaluation portfolios help link improvement and accountability concerns in the peer review process. Portfolios that are structured around professional standards and the school's accountability goals are a good way to measure teacher effectiveness. Implementation…