Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center
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Standards and Assessments
State High School Tests: Changes in State Policies and the Impact of the College and Career Readiness Movement
The Center on Education Policy released their annual study of high school exit exams and other assessments, finding that fewer states are requiring students to pass a high school exit exam, though testing in other areas has increased. The report, based on a survey of all 50 state departments of education, discusses state policies associated with high school exit exams, college entrance exams (such as the ACT or SAT), and college and career readiness assessments.
Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment
The Alliance for Excellent Education released a report outlining evidence-based practices on how assessment can improve the writing skills of American students. The report also provides specific recommendations on how teachers can improve their students' writing skills and includes examples of how each of the recommendations can be carried out in the classroom.
A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas
The National Research Council released a report presenting a new framework for K–12 science education that identifies the key scientific ideas and practices all students should learn by the end of high school. The framework will serve as the foundation for new K–12 science education standards to replace those issued more than a decade ago.
The Road Ahead for State Assessments
Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) released a series of three papers that offer a blueprint for strengthening assessment policy and point out how new technologies are opening up new possibilities for fairer, more accurate evaluations of what students know and are able to do. Not all of the promises can yet be delivered, but the report provides a clear set of assessment-policy recommendations.
New Student Assessments and Advancing Teaching as a Results-Oriented Profession: A White Paper Developed for the Race to the Top Assessment Consortia
Advancing Consortium Assessment Reform (ACAR) project released a paper raising concerns about a) the inadequate contextual knowledge possessed by those who create and administer evaluation instruments and b) the documented effects on teacher effectiveness and student achievement of certain school working conditions.
The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a report on The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011. In this report, content experts reviewed the U.S. history standards of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. They also reviewed the U.S. history framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Each was awarded a letter grade (except for Rhode Island, which has not mandated any standards in this subject). Standards were appraised for their "clarity and specificity" as well as their "content and rigor."
Closing the Expectations Gap 2011
Achieve has released their annual 50-state progress report on the alignment of high school policies with the demands of college and careers. Closing the Expectations Gap 2011 is the sixth annual report in this series. The report details state progress implementing the American Diploma Project policy agenda.
Linking Assessment and Instruction: Teacher Preparation and Professional Development
The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center) has released an Issue Paper providing a framework and justification for effective ways that teachers can collect and use assessment data to make instructional decisions. This framework is provided as an indication of what effective linking of assessment data to instructional decisions ought to look like—rather than a summary or survey of current practices.
State High School Tests: Exit Exams and Other Assessments
The Center on Education Policy (CEP) recently published its 9th annual report on high school exit exams discussing new developments in state high school exit exam policies and how students enrolled in school in states with these policies are affected. This year's report finds that 28 states required high school exit exams in the 2009–10 school year (up from 26 in 2009), and public schools in those states enroll 83 percent of the nation's students of color and more than three-quarters of the country's low-income pupils.
International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards
American Institute of Research (AIR) released a report using international benchmarking to examine the expectations gap between what students are expected to learn in some states and what students are expected to learn in others. This report assumes that each state's expectations are embodied in the stringency of the performance standards it uses on its own state accountability tests. The state performance standards represent how much the state expects the student to learn in order to be considered proficient in reading and mathematics.
