Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Middle School (6-8)

Overview: State Definitions of College and Career Readiness

This overview highlights common elements of state definitions of “college and career readiness.” Through the review of state definitions, the author identifies six broad common categories, including academic knowledge; critical thinking and/or problem solving; social and emotional learning, collaboration, and/or communication; grit, resilience, and perseverance; citizenship and/or community involvement; and other additional activities. 

The College and Career Readiness and Success Organizer

From the Publisher: The Career Readiness and Success Organizer “is a graphic that displays a consolidated overview of the many elements that impact a learner’s ability to succeed in college and careers at both the institutional and individual levels. The Organizer is intended to be a comprehensive and visual representation of the complexities of the college […]

The Equitable Access Implementation Playbook: Communication Guidebook

The purpose of this publication is to help states communicate their Equitable Access Plans to different audiences. The authors cover five steps: Identify audiences and messengers. Identify and implement communication channels. Develop key messages. Develop a communications project management plan. Monitor the effectiveness of communication. Four activities are provided to facilitate the development and implementation of […]

A New Vision for Accountability

Student assessments face challenges of quality, cost, and appropriate use, writes scholar Linda Darling-Hammond. Written for school board members, this article is brief and to the point about ensuring and implementing the use of high-quality assessments (a topic covered in numerous publications by Darling-Hammond and other assessment experts – see Related Resources below for a […]

Testing More, Teaching Less: What America’s Obsession with Student Testing Costs in Money and Lost Instructional Time

For this study by the AFT, assessment inventories and testing calendars from two medium-size urban school districts were reviewed. A two-district analysis was utilized to identify recognition and a variety of assessment practices. The study used a detailed researched-based rubric for estimating instructional time lost to test preparation (which the authors defined as giving practice […]

Are You Ready to Assess Social and Emotional Development? Tools Index

The Tools Index is last in a three part series of a social and emotional learning (SEL) toolkit to help educators in schools and districts decide on whether and how to assess SEL. (To view the Ready To Assess suite of tools, click here.) The Tools Index, organized by grade level span, provides information on SEL assessments that allows educators to make […]