Getting to Higher-Quality Assessments: Evaluating Costs, Benefits, and Investment Strategies - To compare the cost of assessments under No Child Left Behind with new assessments in the era of Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Assessments Solutions Group researched various states' current spending on summative, interim, and formative assessments. They conclude the CCSS assessments will be higher quality, and "readily affordable." (Barry Topol, John Olson and Ed Roeber, SCOPE, March 2013)...

Developing Assessments of Deeper Learning: The Costs and Benefits of Using Tests that Help Students Learn - With Common Core State Standards comes a demand for higher-order thinking skills and a second demand for assessments that measure those skills. Two consortia - the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC)- have been working on those advanced assessments and the authors recommend drawing on their work. But how to pay for these advanced tests and their scoring? States now spend, on average, $50 per pupil for statewide, interim and benchmark tests which still total less than 1% of per pupil spending. That would just about do it if state consortia took advantage of economies of scale, and teachers and computers scored open-ended tasks, which, the authors say, would have the double advantage of resulting in improved instruction. (Linda Darling-Hammond and Frank Adamson, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, March 15, 2013)...

The State of Proficiency: How Student Proficiency Rates Vary Across States, Subjects and Grades Between 2002 and 2010 - The purpose of this study is to shine some light on the limitations of using proficiency rates based on inconsistent and arbitrary "passing scores" to make judgments about educational effectiveness. (Sarah Durant, Michael Dahlin, Deborah Adkins and G. Gage Kingsbury, Kingbury Center at Northwest Evaluation Association, June 2011)...

The Road Ahead for State Assessments - A blueprint for strengthening assessment policy, pointing out how new technologies are opening up new possibilities for fairer, more accurate evaluations of what students know and are able to do. Not all of the promises can yet be delivered, but the report provides a clear set of assessment-policy recommendations. (Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, May 2011) ...

Learning About Assessment: An Evaluation of a Ten-State Effort to Build Assessment Capacity in High Schools - In 2006, Delaware and the Council of Chief State School Officers partnered with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education to conduct an evaluation of a 10-state initiative that sought to enhance assessment practices at the high school level. This report focuses on the goal in the work of having the creation and function of teacher learning teams focused on assessment for learning. (Consortium for Policy Research in Education, February 2009)...

Measuring Skills for the 21st Century - Best learning occurs when basic skills are taught in combination with complex thinking skills, for example, the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information. Assessment should measure both without adding to the number of tests students must take. This report debunks the notion that such 21st century skills as creative thinking and analysis cannot be reliably, inexpensively and fairly measured, offering examples of tests already devised and predicting more are on the way. (Elena Silva, Education Sector, November 2008)...

Lessons Learned About Testing: Ten Years of Work at the National Research Council - The Council's Board on Testing and Assessment has released this report detailing recurring themes that are geared toward helping policymakers in education who use large-scale tests. The themes, or lessons, of the report are broken into four main categories: uses, design, consequences and public understanding. (National Resource Council, July 2007)...

Assessment: Are assessments that rely heavily on teacher judgment reliable? - Access related research titles from the ECS Research Studies Database. Links embedded in titles will take you to each study's major findings and recommendations....

On the Structure of Educational Assessments - This paper describes a framework for assessment that highlights the interrelationships among substantive arguments, assessment designs and operational processes. This framework can be applied to analyzing existing assessments or designing new assessments. (Robert J. Mislevy, Center for the Study of Evaluation, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, May 2003)...