Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Subject Area: Other

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 […]

Kindergarten Readiness Assessments Help Identify Skill Gaps

Researchers have long traced achievement gaps in the elementary years back to readiness gaps at the start of kindergarten. Educators seeking to address these gaps, which are associated with race and ethnicity, home language, disability status, and indicators of economic disadvantage, need systematic ways to identify which children need what kinds of support as they […]

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 […]

Academic Achievement through Student Agency: Dallas ISD’s Journey

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 […]

Lessons Learned About Leading the Implementation of Formative Assessment: A Framework for School Leaders and Leadership Teams

When teachers and students share the responsibility for learning, students become active agents in their own learning who respond to feedback, set learning goals, track their progress, and adapt their own learning strategies when needed. Formative assessment provides a clear path forward to this kind of teaching and learning experience, and site leadership is critical […]