State-Sponsored Formative Assessment Initiatives: What Conception of “Formative Assessment” Do They Support and How?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 100
  In Roundtable Session: Current Issues in Classroom Observation and Assessment

Abstract

Formative assessment has been a topic of great interest to education policymakers and practitioners in recent years. However, it is a wide used term and uncertainty over how it is being practiced persists. Recent federal legislation has added state education agencies (SEAs) the responsibility to change and improve instruction at the classroom level. This paper describes four state-sponsored initiatives in states in the northeastern U.S. that support formative assessment, analyzing its definitions, the roles of the SEA in these initiatives and a description of how these initiatives are organized. Using qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews with initiative leaders at the state and district-levels, as well as written information provided by interviewees and other public documents, served as the study’s data sources.

Authors

• Maria Teresa Sanchez, Education Development Center, Inc.

• Josephine K. Louie, Education Development Center, Inc.