Category Archives: Assessment

The Obama Administration and Assessments 2.0

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Earlier this year in a speech to state leaders at Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan remarked, “Today is the day that marks the beginning of the development of a new and much-improved generation of assessments for America’s schoolchildren. Today marks the start of Assessments 2.0”  (Duncan, 2010). Duncan was referring to the development of new assessments by two large state consortia, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, who won awards totaling $330 million through the Race to the Top competition (Duncan, 2010). These two consortia will work over the next few years “designing and implementing comprehensive assessment systems in math and English language arts” so that by 2014 the assessments will be ready for use in any state (Duncan, 2010). Continue reading →

Can performance-based assessments be effectively implemented on a large scale?

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Large-scale, performance-based assessments are a favorable alternative to current dominant testing strategies in any subject because they have the potential to

…yield a more complete picture of students’ abilities and weaknesses…support higher quality teaching… increase intellectual challenge in the classroom…[and] can overcome some of the validity challenges of assessing English Language Learners and students with disabilities. (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2010) Continue reading →

Pros and Cons of Performance-based Assessment

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Performance-based assessments fall into the category of alternative or authentic assessment (Sweet, 1993). They rely on “authentic tasks that assess what a student knows and can do” (Caffrey, 2009). On such assessments students are required “to perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made list” (Sweet, 1993). Oftentimes, assessments such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), American College Testing (ACT), Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) tests, and even some state exams, include a performance-based assessment portion; one in which a student must, for example: write an essay, solve a problem, or explain how he or she would perform a hypothetical experiment. Proponents of this type of assessment believe that “because they require students to actively demonstrate what they know, performance-based assessments may be a more valid indicator of students’ knowledge and abilities” (Sweet, 1993). Continue reading →

Roots of the performance-based assessment movement

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As those of you who frequently read books or articles about education have undoubtedly found, one report in particular, A Nation at Risk, really rocked the world of education. Released in 1983, the report offered startling data and came to alarming conclusions, “warn[ing] that the nation would be harmed economically and socially unless education was dramatically improved for all children” (Ravitch, 2010). The report identified education in the United States as unacceptably weak and pointed to low standards as the primary cause (Porter, 1994). To combat this educational crisis, ANAR “encouraged states and the nation to craft genuine curriculum standards in many subjects” (Ravitch, 2010). Continue reading →

Performance-based Assessments

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It know it has been awhile since I’ve written anything for my blog. For the past few weeks I’ve been caught up in educational experiences of my own: volunteering at West Philadelphia High and Wilson Elementary, completing research papers, taking finals, and applying for Ph.D.s. Philadelphia is truly a great place to pursue higher education, because, like many other urban areas, it offers the perfect opportunity to be involved locally and also be challenged academically—for this, I am extremely grateful.  Continue reading →