How Well Aligned Are State Assessments With State Standards or Common Core/Next Generation Science Standards?

• In Event: Accountability and Assessment Policy: Exploring History and Impact

Abstract

In the past five years as more rigorous standards have been adopted by many states, a key issue for state policy-makers is how to support an assessment system that is consistent and aligned with state content standards. The analysis in this paper focuses on two questions:
1) What assessments of mathematics and science education are being used in statewide student assessments, and how have the assessments changed with new math and science standards?
2) What indicators can be applied across the states to provide comparable measures of alignment? When applied, what do the indicators show about degree of alignment between assessments and standards across the states?

Authors

• Rolf K. Blank, STEM K-12 Research

• Elizabeth Lynn Adams, Southern Methodist University