Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Keyword: Accountability

Including Performance Assessments in Accountability Systems: A Review of Scale-up Efforts

The purpose of this field review is to understand previous efforts at scaling up performance assessments for use across districts and states. Through a systematic description of seven performance assessment scale-up efforts, as well as descriptions of analogous efforts from teacher certification, medicine, and law, this review concludes with implications for future endeavors to integrate […]

Reflections on Educational Testing: Problems and Opportunities

This article provides guidance to the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education as to possible assessment-related initiatives to improve mathematics and science learning in the United States. The article focuses on (1) classroom assessments and (2) assessments for accountability. The article addresses some major intended and unintended influences of achievement testing and of test-based […]

Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment

This resource focuses on the writing achievement of American students, most of whom do not write well enough to meet grade-level demands, despite improvement in the last 20 years (Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008). The inability to effectively convey thoughts and ideas through writing is integral to why many students do not complete high school. […]

Making the Grade: A 50-State Analysis of School Accountability Systems

This publication includes: an historical overview of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; a review of the requirements of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act; a summary of the difference types of accountability systems used by states; and specific information about different state accountability systems. The authors conclude with a number of recommendations for states as they further […]

Testing Overload in America’s Schools

The goals of this study were to obtain a better understanding of how much time students spend taking tests and to identify the degree to which the tests are mandated by districts or states. The study focused on 14 urban and suburban districts in seven states during the 2013-14 school year. Researchers examined district and […]

Better Tests, Fewer Barriers: Advances in Accessibility through PARCC and Smarter Balanced

As the title implies, this Center for American Progress publication provides an overview of the general movement toward increased accessibility for students with disabilities (SWDs) and English Language Learners (ELLs). The authors present statistics showing a substantial increase in the numbers of SWDs and ELLs in U.S. public schools and how paper and pencil tests are […]