Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Middle School (6-8)

Knowing the Score: The Who, What, and Why of Testing

This brief provides information about K-12 testing with the goal of helping parents, educators, policymakers, and others make decisions about testing policies in their community and state. Background information is provided, as well as answers to common questions about K-12 testing, including the following: 1. What basic facts about tests are important to understand? 2. […]

Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners: Research-Based Recommendations for Serving Adolescent Newcomers

Meeting the complex needs of newcomer adolescent students is not simple and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. This report describes the research on newcomer programs and provides evidence-based recommendations for addressing the challenges of program implementation. The authors provide information about effective instruction for adolescent newcomers by presenting a conceptual framework and evidence-based recommendations for instructional elements such […]

ELA Building Blocks of a Standard

This tool is used to record the Learning Goals and Success Criteria of lesson-sized stacks of Building Blocks. Teachers may choose to use one template per stack or record multiple stacks on the same template.

How Were the Pyramids Built?

This ELA and history lesson plan incorporates formative assessment. For the full set of ELA and history lesson plans, visit this collection on model lesson plans.