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Promoting Student Achievement through Accountability and Assessment

Educators, parents, politicians, and concerned citizens agree that the American educational system is in poor shape, and that far reaching changes are needed for improvement. One illustration: in today’s junior high schools, more than 80 percent of Black and Latino students say they intend to go to college. For those who get to college, up to 60 percent require remedial work to prepare them for college courses. Furthermore, 25-50 percent of these students drop out of college after only one year. Accountability in education refers to holding school districts, school administrators, educators and students responsible for demonstrating specific academic performance …

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The Real Purpose of Assessments in Education

Assessment is a key part of today’s educational system. Assessment serves as an individual evaluation system, and as a way to compare performance across a spectrum and across populations. However, with so many different kinds of assessments for so many different organizations available (and often required) these days, it can sometimes be hard to keep the real purpose of assessing in view. So, what’s really at the heart of all these assessments? The purpose of assessment is to gather relevant information about student performance or progress, or to determine student interests to make judgments about their learning process. After receiving …

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Important Ways Assessment in the Classroom Impacts Testing and Curriculum

Assessment has become a central part of education. While lifelong learning should always be the main focus of a classroom, the pervasive knowledge that at some point, there will be testing, from the local scale to the national, has also become a backdrop in curriculum development. Standardized testing has long been part of the K–12 scene, but since the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001, student results have been used by the federal and state governments to determine the level of funding schools receive. The salaries and job security of teachers and administrators are also determined, at …

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Should we grade teachers on student performance?

Should teachers be judged on student performance? Is it a fair assessment of their skills as educators? A recent study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis is the latest in a number of forms of research that cast doubt on whether it is feasible for states to evaluate teachers based partially on student test scores.  Research shows us that little to no correlation between high quality teaching and the appraisals these teachers are given. We have seen a sharp rise in the number of states that have turned to teacher-evaluation systems based on student test scores. The rapid implementation …

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The Future of K-12 Assessment

Many educators view standardized testing as a necessary evil of the improvement process. More cynical educators view it as a completely useless process that is never a true indicator of what students actually know. Proponents of K-12 assessments say that without them, there is no adequate way to enforce educator accountability. Love it or hate it, K-12 standardized testing is not going away. It is just changing. The No Child Left Behind Act uses standardized testing results to determine progress and outline areas for improvement in K-12 schools. This standards-based approach to education reform has often been attacked for its …

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Eliminating tests through continual assessment

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.** A guest post by Leslie Tyler “Common Core was such a good idea,” remarked a middle school administrator I recently spoke with. “But then the testing ruined it.” Educators have been working on the transition to the new Common Core State Standards over the past 4-5 years. But last year’s final implementation step – administering …

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