Opinion Essay 3: Assessment for Educator Use

• In Event: The Future of Measurement and Accountability: A Research-Driven Vision

Abstract

Learning is a cultural process, rooted in our brains and connected to our identities (NASEM, 2018; McKinney de Royston, 2020). Currently, accountability and assessment systems undermine this process via practices that stigmatize students (Feldman, 2018, 2019; Inoue, 2015) and inhibit the work of their teachers (Holloway & Brass, 2017). This op-ed argues for a vision of learning that connects with the broader purposes of schooling–a vision that can effectively guide the work of educators and students in the classroom (Hammerness, 1999). We propose the following five policy recommendations:
Policy Recommendation 1: District leaders, in collaboration with classroom educators, should develop a vision of learning that connects with broader purposes of education. This vision should go beyond academic standards and should guide assessment. The vision should focus on equity in the quality of student experience, to ensure all students experience challenging, active, meaningful, and relevant learning, as well as a deep sense of belonging in and beyond the classroom.
Policy Recommendation 2: School leaders should develop grading criteria that support equitable learning by encouraging risk taking and grounding grading schemes in the assumption that all students can be successful.
Policy Recommendation 3: All assessment and grading should be anchored in a high-quality curriculum and should be free of counterproductive sanctions that stigmatize educators and their schools. We define high-quality curriculum as grounded in understandings of how students learn and that connect to students’ lives and communities.
Policy Recommendations 4 and 5: Congress should allocate funding for two grant programs. The first should be a state-administered federal grant program that supports coherent, sustained professional learning in classroom assessment, as part of ESEA reauthorization. The second should be an expanded Competitive Grants for State Assessment program, which supports curriculum-based assessments grounded in an evidence-based understanding of how students learn. External partners on both these types of grants should be required to include a research partner and be able to support continuous improvement; the professional development must be informed by research, not just data.

Authors

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Elena K. Diaz-Bilello, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ricardo D. Rosa, Massachusetts Teachers Association
  Non-Presenting Author