Partnering With Local Program Leaders to Support Rigorous Performance Assessment for Students Furthest From Opportunity

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility for Equitable Educational Opportunities Through a Statewide Collaborative to Support High-Quality Performance Assessments

Abstract

Purpose, Perspectives, & Significance

This presentation shares the perspective of a technical assistance provider participating in the statewide performance assessment collaborative. Program leaders in a large urban district in California have been engaged in bringing performance assessment to scale within a network of more than 40 high schools, with a commitment to support student success in high school and preparation for college and careers. Grounded in a close examination of student work, they realized that improving the quality and rigor of teacher-designed projects was a critical next step in improving students’ access to and preparation for college and careers. They sought technical expertise from the statewide collaborative and the technical assistance partner to achieve this goal. This presentation documents the results of this partnership, including an evaluation of project quality over the course of the partnership.

Research has found that in schools where students engage in authentic assessments such as projects and performance assessments, students outperform comparable groups of students on measures of core content knowledge and complex problem-solving skills such as the OECD PISA-Based Test for Schools, the A.P. test on U.S. History and Politics, and the Smarter Balanced Assessments in English and math. They are also more engaged in academic learning, have higher rates of completing high school on time and enrolling in four-year colleges and persisting through their first year of college and beyond.

However, these results are more likely to be achieved when performance assessments are clearly aligned to rigorous learning outcomes. When bringing performance assessments to scale quickly, attention to the quality of project design tends to decrease in priority. Program leaders sought to develop educator capacity to attend to the quality and rigor of their projects so that students could produce rigorous work that demonstrates college and career readiness.

Methods, Data Sources, and Results

In the first year, the technical assistance partner collaborated with program leaders to offer a professional development series with a focus on aligning project designs to rigorous disciplinary skills – 1) problem solving in mathematics; and 2) research and argumentation in ELA. In the second year, the partners worked together to refine quality criteria for performance assessment and develop clear anchors to calibrate project reviewers and piloted these materials with teacher leaders to generate peer feedback on projects. The technical assistance provider also used the quality criteria to review teacher-developed projects over the past few years up to the second year of the partnership, and shared feedback with teachers and program leaders. The quality criteria have continued to be used by program leaders to support project design across more than 40 district schools.

Analysis of project quality using the quality criteria reveals continued variability in quality but shows promise for engaging educators in peer collaboration to fine-tune their projects. More importantly, district program leaders honestly examined the quality of their teacher and student work and took responsibility for developing their own capacity and sustainable systems for improving project quality.

Author

• Ruth Chung Wei, Envision Education