In 2017, Ben Milam Elementary in the Dallas Independent School District (ISD) engaged in structural work to promote agency, equity, and academic achievement for all its students. This work prompted school leaders to ask themselves:

• How can all students be both learners and leaders at our school?
• How can students better support and learn from one another?

To share their insights into what this process looked like, leaders from Ben Milam and Dallas ISD joined WestEd expert Nancy Gerzon in this webinar.

After the webinar, Nancy Gerzon and Barbara Jones shared the following reflections on working with Ben Milam and Dallas ISD leaders, including highlights of Ben Milam principal Anna Galvan’s work to support a school culture that embraced formative assessment practices and encouraged students to be agents of their own learning trajectories.

Leading Formative Assessment in Dallas: Toward Student Agency and Academic Achievement

Many visitors to Ben Milam Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, have come away deeply impressed by how students are engaging in the learning process. District and school leaders who visited in fall 2019 saw students across different classrooms realizing the benefits of formative assessment. Whether clustered in reading groups, solving math problems, or giving feedback to one another in small groups, each student focused on directing their own individual learning.

Observers also noted something else unique: Teachers were not standing in front of classes and directing students. Rather, they were circulating, checking in on student groups, and conferring with individuals. The visitors reported noticing that student and teacher roles were dramatically different from the norm at other campuses. In particular, at Ben Milam they observed the power of all students to:

• Leverage peer knowledge and experience to advance their own understanding
• Know what they are learning and have a clear sense of how to take next steps to move their learning forward
• Stay engaged, focused, and confident about their role as learners

These are characteristics of a strong formative assessment culture. As a result, Ben Milam was selected as a demonstration site for formative assessment practices after a district leader visited last year and decided that others should have a chance to see what the school’s teachers were doing. Since then, Ben Milam has welcomed a lot of visitors. It has also continued to embody a learning culture that supports effective implementation of formative assessment, as both students and adults learn from evidence, from each other, and even from the visitors.

Drawing on a WestEd-led evaluation and on others’ observations, this article explores how Ben Milam’s learning culture has developed around formative assessment. It describes the school’s efforts to develop formative assessment practices, including its principal and teachers embracing a professional learning stance that provides a fertile context for promoting student learning and developing the dispositions and skills to learn how to learn.

A Culture of Learning, With Students at the Center

Ben Milam’s principal, Anna Galvan, has supported teachers and students to take on formative assessment practices aimed at greater equity and learning. Along the way, she has heard many misconceptions about formative assessment. “Formative assessment is often misunderstood as more frequent or ‘shorter-cycle’ assessments, with the teacher still in charge of monitoring and evaluating students,” says Galvan. But she and her faculty learned early on that formative assessment has the power to advance achievement only when students come to see themselves as responsible for, and agents of, their own learning.

The school’s formative assessment practices focus on providing ways to make students’ current knowledge and understanding visible (e.g., through what they say, do,