The two authors share learning gleaned from personal, classroom experiences in small schools--both cautions and assurances--for other educators who may be embarking on a similar path. We worked at two different small high school sites in the Denver Public Schools, an urban district with an ethnically diverse student population of 78,000. We…

A growing number of school districts in the United States are introducing formative assessment systems to measure student skills in core subjects throughout the year. The underlying logic is that providing teachers with timely information on student skills will enable them to improve instruction and better prepare students to excel on high-stakes,…