Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Subject Area: English Language Arts

A First Look at Early Literacy Performance in Massachusetts

Massachusetts commissioned WestEd to conduct a study of the state’s K-3 student reading skills. WestEd’s report, authored by Mariann Lemke, Dan Murphy, Aaron Soo Ping Chow, Hayley Spencer, and Angela Zhang, provides insights into indicators of Massachusetts students showing early signs of reading difficulties. WestEd researchers examined literacy screening assessment data collected by districts and […]

English Learner (EL) Pre-Referral Flow Chart Questions

This decision-making flow chart includes target questions that Child Study teams or MTSS teams should address when working through the pre-referral decision-making process. Each school or district may modify these questions to reflect their own policies and procedures, but the outline of this flow chart provides some key decision points that should be considered when […]

Spring 2021 Performance on Three Locally Determined Assessments in California

As part of the technical assistance provided by the Region 15 Comprehensive Center at WestEd (R15 CC) to the California State Board of Education (SBE) and California Department of Education (CDE) staff, a request was made to the R15 CC to gather data from three selected testing publishers that had supported the administration of spring […]

K–2 Assessment Systems Enable Early Intervention to Foster Student Success

Across the United States, statewide assessments in English language arts and mathematics are federally mandated each school year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. The intent is to help educators, policymakers, and parents directly gauge how students and their school systems are performing against state standards. Missing nationwide, however, is any […]

How School Administrators Can Support and Promote Formative Assessment

Reflecting on the How I Know initiative in the Dallas Independent School District, Susan Villani writes about her work with administrators and educators to implement formative assessment practices into school cultures and practices. In this article, Villani focuses on the most powerful strategies that school administrators utilized to support implementation of formative assessment practices into […]