ASSESSMENT CONVENING

On April 29th, Advance Illinois held an assessment convening that brought experts and implementers in the field of assessment together to better understand the direction of the national conversation on assessment. 

Participating in the conversation were school district leaders, foundations, and policy makers.  A special thanks to our speakers:

• Dr. James Pellegrino - The Center for the Study of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Development
• Valerie Greenhill - Partnership for 21st Century Skills
• Larry Berger - Wireless Generation
• Dr. Jon Twing - Pearson
• Ted Stilwill and Cortney Rowland - Learning Point Associates
• Bill Tucker - Education Sector

Background

Across the nation, standards and assessments are a hot topic – ripe for fundamental change. The president has spoken openly about moving beyond bubble tests to having a far richer and embedded set of assessments. Illinois and dozens of other states have joined together to form consortia on both common standards and how to appropriately assess student learning. Discussion is taking place around standards delivery, assessment structures, and technology strategies needed to deliver on this massive change. Here in Illinois, in the face of new teacher evaluation legislation and challenges with ISAT, school districts are confronting an increased demand for assessments which do it all -- measure student growth, support teacher development, and provide for increased accountability.

Of course, the answers are complex and multi-dimensional. Possibilities include more on-line assessments, computer adaptive assessments, and portfolio assessments. Fundamentally, models and implementation timeframes should center on meeting the needs of students. To this end, Linda Darling Hammond and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) provided a set of guiding principles as a counterweight to simply replace existing assessments as quickly as possible (Darling-Hammond, 2010).

• Assessments should be managed as part of a tightly integrated system of standards, curriculum, assessment, instruction, and teacher development;
• There should be a balance of assessment measures that includes evidence of actual student performance on challenging tasks; Teachers should be integrally involved in the development of curriculum and the development and scoring of assessment measures;
• Assessment measures should be structured to continuously improve teaching and learning;
• Assessment and accountability systems should be designed to improve the quality of learning and schooling;
• Assessment and accountability systems should use multiple measures to evaluate students and schools;
• Assessment systems should take advantage of new technologies that enable greater assessment quality and information systems that support accountability.