Professional Perspectives – Eastern Middle School - DEMO

These focus on the usefulness of assessment in relation to different audiences and purposes for assessment.

Lucinda: Middle School Principal

Lucinda cites a potential drawback of high-stakes assessments

Schools have so many agendas to follow when it comes to assessment. Often, high stakes tests get the lion's share of attention, and other assessments that may be as useful--or more useful--don't get the attention they deserve. I'm thinking of classroom teachers in particular. If all our efforts are placed in high stakes test preparation, we may be missing the opportunity to help teachers do the useful daily assessments that give them quality information that can be used quickly to inform instruction. And that, unfortunately, may lead to teaching that is less differentiated, less effective.

Dr. Lorna Earl

University of Toronto

Dr. Earl discusses how we tend to use and how we should use assessments of student learning.

I think that there is probably one really fundamental principle that underlies everything that we ought to be doing and it is that assessment is for learning. Historically, assessment has been of learning, something you do at the end, to finish up with. I think that we're now realizing that assessment can be the mechanism that gives students the feedback they need as well as teachers so that they're learning is really motivated by needing to know something more rather than motivated by getting some kind of symbolic representation of their learning when it's all over. I think that we are far too driven by external standardized testing of various kinds. And not that there isn't a place for it, but it's a much smaller place than it's taken on. We could use many, many more strategies for assessment and create a whole assessment array so that we have a variety of approaches to helping children learn using assessment. We're much too dependent, I think, on large scale standardized testing as a way of gathering information. Walt Haney at Boston College once said using one assessment for a multitude of purposes is like using a hammer for everything from brain surgery to pal (ph.) driving. We have lots of tools. We have many, many ways in which we can assess students' work. I think that we need to use a variety of assessments. But as important as having a variety is identifying, and teachers identifying, what it is they are using the assessment for. Because what you're going to use for really then is the impetus for the way in which you decide what you actually need to use.

Marla: Parent

Marla talks about what she values in assessment information and how she likes to use it.

As a parent, I appreciate assessment information that comes home from the school. It helps me understand what my children have accomplished, what they are working on, where they are headed, and so forth. I like to know how my kids have improved and how they are doing, you know, compared to other kids their age. I also like to have detailed assessment information so that I can support my children's work at home. It's got to make sense, of course--not a bunch of complicated jargon--good information in plain language. You know what I mean?

James: School Board Member

James sees assessments as a way to focus change efforts.

It's not complicated, really. It's not nuclear science. Schools are under pressure to keep their test scores high, or to move them up, from one year to the next. This is how it should be. Taxpayers spend a lot of money on schools, and assessments need to let taxpayers know that their money is not wasted. I am proud to say that our school board looks at our scores on a continual basis. We move resources around to help the schools where scores are not as high as they should be. Yes, we add to the pressure, but I think that is a necessary route to an expected end. I can point to several cases in our school system over the last six years where scores have risen because of the pressure we apply to certain schools and the resources we provide. These schools know they must improve or else. No more excuses. The test scores make all of us accountable to the students. What can I say? It works.

Dr. Peter Afflerbach

University of Maryland

Dr. Afflerbach discusses the need for a balanced approach to assessment

I think that it is important to have a systemic or programmatic perspective on all of the assessments that are happening within a classroom, within a school, within a district, within a state, and how that will have to be added to. So that we think about an assessment program that is nationwide. Because we do have a new law that talks about the fact that we're going to have at least in math and reading, we're going to have testing every year increase three through eight, that's guaranteed. And because that's a decision that's been made sometimes for us we have to think about how do our other assessments fit in this array of assessments. And in thinking about a program I like to think about a balanced approach to assessment. If we have a high stakes assessment that takes a lion's share of attention in school resources the chances of a decent and useful classroom set of assessments being up and running in the class is reduced in my experience. So I think that programmatic perspective considers the different audiences of assessment and the different uses of assessment. And that programmatic perspective can guarantee that all the different audiences that need assessment information get it in a timely manner and that they get assessment information that is useful to them.

Dr. Patricia Alexander

University of Maryland

Dr. Alexander makes the case that an inordinate amount of attention placed on large-scale assessment "clouds the teaching process".

I think that it is important to have a systemic or programmatic perspective on all of the assessments that are happening within a classroom, within a school, within a district, within a state, and how that will have to be added to. So that we think about an assessment program that is nationwide. Because we do have a new law that talks about the fact that we're going to have at least in math and reading, we're going to have testing every year increase three through eight, that's guaranteed. And because that's a decision that's been made sometimes for us we have to think about how do our other assessments fit in this array of assessments. And in thinking about a program I like to think about a balanced approach to assessment. If we have a high stakes assessment that takes a lion's share of attention in school resources the chances of a decent and useful classroom set of assessments being up and running in the class is reduced in my experience. So I think that programmatic perspective considers the different audiences of assessment and the different uses of assessment. And that programmatic perspective can guarantee that all the different audiences that need assessment information get it in a timely manner and that they get assessment information that is useful to them.

Dr. Mike Young

University of Connecticut

Dr. Young shares his views on assessment in learner-centered designs.

When we think about assessing learner-centered designs, one of the things you have to acknowledge is that it's not just going to be a product assessment anymore. You're going to have to assess process and how students come to an answer at least as much as what answer they come to. Because looking at a learner means nurturing the process that they come to. Such ideas as problem based learning and project based learning and anchored instruction, all have in common this interest, not so much in the answer that students get, but in how they achieve the answer. So, assessment also means acknowledging that there are multiple correct answers and that there may need to be multiple assessments. So that it's not just the teacher anymore who's responsible in determining whether or not that process was a good one. It may be inviting teachers, inviting the community in to look at the work that students are doing. And I don't mean just the products of their work, but also evidence of the process of their work. So it may mean moving towards performance based assessments, portfolio based assessments and even more authentic assessments, where assessment and instruction are one, that they're continuously seamless. The assessments that you're doing are helping the student create a better product or achieve the goal that they're working for.