The Republic of the Marshall Islands Public School System, requested information about alternative assessment evaluation, including detail on performance and competency-based assessment. In response, this high-level scan from the Region 19 Comprehensive Center identifies example tools and measures along with key resources and references. Also…

This study examined what professional development is needed to implement performance based assessments in order for educators to provide a means of assessment that gives a well-rounded picture of what students achieve in order to prioritize academic achievement for all students and provide opportunities for closing the gaps. By implementing or…

The standards-based learning and grading movement of the past twenty years has ushered in a critical shift in assessment that demands clarity in both what is being measured and how well students are learning. Seeing the value in this evolution, a wave of schools has invested enormous effort to institutionalize the policy and practices of the…

This article presents theoretical orientations and practical applications for the assessment of d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) children. It discusses current approaches to assessment and the factors affecting d/Dhh children's participation in assessments using those approaches. Gaps in the field around access to appropriate assessments are…

This field report from 2017's National Conference on Student Assessment shares possibilities for flexibility and innovation in assessment and accountability made possible by the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Relying on teachers' assessments for the information currently provided by standardized test scores would save instructional time, better capture the true abilities of diverse students, and reduce the problem of teaching to the test. A California high school is implementing standards-based reporting, ensuring that teacher-issued grades function as…

The Scylla and Charybdis in this discussion of teacher evaluation are standardized achievement test data on the one hand, and classroom observational systems on the other. These are the two most common methods used to judge teachers' competency. Both have serious flaws: the former primarily with validity, the latter primarily with reliability. At…

Dynamic assessment methods, initially developed by Feuerstein in the 1970s, have been recommended as being more equitable for identifying the academic abilities of students who may not perform well on traditional assessments due to these learners' cultural, linguistic, or economic differences from the population for whom the traditional measures…

The No Child Left Behind Act mandated the development of statewide alternate assessments to measure the academic achievement of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. The valid assessment of all test takers is critical due to its high-stakes nature and the use of its results to inform instruction. Given the heterogeneity of the…

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the edTPA, a performance assessment created by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and administered by Pearson, Inc., to assess the professional readiness of student teachers. We challenge claims made in support of using this assessment, specifically within the…

Enough has been written about academic assessment to fill a library, but when one thinks about it, the whole enterprise really amounts to a straightforward two-step dance. Collect information about how students are doing, then share that information with the students and their parents. Gather and report--that's pretty much it. Collecting…

In this article, the author describes some efforts initiated about 2 decades ago to reform mathematics assessment. Many, if not most, of those ideas have gradually eroded not only from school practice but also from the knowledge base of current day thinking and research in mathematics assessment. In addition to exploring and explaining the policy,…

This report provides an overview of what was known about alternative assessment at the time that the article was written in 1991. Topics include beliefs about assessment reform, overview of alternative assessment including research knowledge, evidence of assessment impact, and critical features of alternative assessment. The author notes that in…

Students with significant disabilities must participate in large-scale assessments, often using an alternate assessment judged against alternate achievement standards. The development and administration of this type of assessment must necessarily balance meaningful participation with accurate measurement. In this study, generalizability theory is…

The purpose of this review is to briefly summarize the state of authentic assessment as it evolves theoretically and then integrates itself into educational practice. Some of the questions it seeks to answer from the literature include: how did it begin; what were the circumstances surrounding its inception; how does it relate to performance and…