Resources on Assessment
Assessment: Identified tools and processes that measure educational outcomes against stated standards. A sound local assessment system incorporates multiple assessments, alignment with academic standards, coordination with state assessment programs, and both "lagging" and "leading" indicators.
Additional Resources
The Nature of Assessment: A Guide to Standardized Testing
This valuable and readable basic guide to standardized testing, or assessment, for everyone with an interest in public schools discusses the nature of assessment, types of assessments, and definitions of the basic concepts employed in testing students.
Testing and Assessment 101
This article from the January 2008 issue of The American School Board Journal covers the terms and concepts every school board member needs to know to understand assessment data.
A Policymaker's Primer on Testing and Assessment
This Infobrief from the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) covers the basics of standardized testing.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as "The Nation's Report Card," is a nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted at specific grade levels in mathematics, reading, science, U.S. history, writing and other subjects. Test results have traditionally been reported on a state level, but recently the program has been extended to several urban districts.
Measuring Skills for the 21st Century
New types of assessments can measure 21st Century skills--such as the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information--in an accurate and comparable manner. These emergent models also demonstrate the potential to measure complex thinking skills at the same time that we measure a student's mastery of core content.
Show What you Know; the Promise of Performance Assessment
School districts might consider adopting performance assessments as a component of their total assessment program. This article discusses what the research says about performance assessment.
A New Kind of Testing
Formative assessment , also know as progress monitoring or curriculum-based assessment, gives teachers continuous information on each student's individual progress toward district goals and standards.
Assessment: What School District Policy Makers Can Do
This summary from Edutopia outlines steps school district staff and school board members can take to support high-quality assessment that can be used to inform teaching and learning.