Conveners:

Judith Browne-Dianis
Linda Darling-Hammond
Carl Glickman
John Goodlad
Gloria Ladson- Billings
Deborah Meier
Larry Myatt
Pedro Noguera
www.forumforeducation.org Wendy Puriefoy
Sharon Robinson
Ted and Nancy Sizer
Angela Valenzuela
George Wood, Executive Director

In Case You Missed It…

Stanford Professor (and Forum Convener) Linda Darling-Hammond, Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and
Student Testing (CRESST) Director Eva Baker, Urban Academy co-director Ann Cook, former Urban Academy student
Kiri Davis, and Nellie Mae Foundation CEO Nicholas Donohue shared a number of key insights and policy implications.

Key Insights:
• National and international expectations for learning have What Are Performance
changed. To meet the demands of the modern world, Assessments?
students must become more reflective, adaptive, innova-
tive, and analytical. Our current emphasis on high-stakes, Performance assessments are tools that allow
multiple-choice testing does not generate these sorts of teachers to gather information about what stu-
skills in young people, nor does it encourage teachers to dents can actually do with what they are learning
teach in ways that help foster the development of these — science experiments that students design, carry
skills. out, analyze, and summarize; computer programs
that students create, test and refine; persuasive
• The United States cannot tolerate accountability systems
essays that students write; research inquiries they
that do not push our students to demonstrate the types
pursue, seeking and assembling evidence about
of skills needed for our society to remain competitive in
a question, and presenting it in written and oral
the global economy.
form.  Whether the skill or standard being mea-
• To implement a system that supports performance-based sured is writing, speaking, mathematical literacy,
assessments, schools should have several components in or research, students actually perform tasks in-
place, such as: opportunities for active learning; formative volving these skills while the teacher observes,
and summative documentation; strategies for corrective gathers information about, then scores the per-
action; multiple ways for students to express and exhibit formance based upon a set of pre-determined
their learning; graduation level performance-based tasks criteria. 
aligned with learning standards; external evaluators of
student work; and a focus on professional development. These assessments typically consist of three
parts; a task, a scoring guide or rubric, and a
• Schools participating in New York City’s Performance
set of administration guidelines. The develop-
Standards Consortium have a significantly lower dropout
ment, administration, and scoring of these tasks
problem than other city schools — just 8%, as opposed to
requires teacher development to insure quality
the citywide average of 20%. These schools also boast a
and consistency. Research suggests that such as-
higher college attendance rate (88% v. 70%) and a higher
sessments are better tools for showing the extent
persistence rate into the sophomore year of college (84%
to which students have developed higher order
v. 73%) despite enrolling more disadvantaged students.
thinking skills, such as the abilities to analyze, syn-
• While high quality assessment requires investments in thesize, and evaluate information.  They lead to
teacher development and the development and scoring more student engagement in learning and stron-
of performance tasks, this investment strengthens teach- ger performance on the kinds of authentic tasks
ers’ understanding of standards and how to meet them, that better resemble what they will need to do
while setting more challenging expectations for what in the world outside of school. They also provide
students should be able to do with what they learn. Thus, richer feedback to teachers, leading to improved
these investments not only provide information about learning outcomes for students.
student achievement; they also improve teaching quality
and student learning.
Policy Implications:
Several policy changes at the national, state and local levels can create a more favorable climate for states and districts
that wish to implement performance-based assessment (PBA) systems:

1. Invest heavily in teacher development. Educators Much evidence suggests that developing and scoring
need opportunities to learn to build, use, and score these assessments is a high-yield investment in teacher
assessments that will inform and guide their teaching. learning and a good use of professional development
They can acquire this knowledge with purposeful pro- resources. In systems that involve teachers in develop-
fessional development that engages them in analyzing ing and scoring assessments, some of the funds other-
student work, developing and scoring performance wise used for outside contractors are instead spent on
tasks around standards, and debriefing with colleagues teachers’ professional learn­ing about assessment and
about how best to incorporate both the assessments on moderated scoring of tasks that raise the standard
and the feedback to students. To develop these skills, for learning and enable teachers to become more skill-
educators will need com­mon planning and learning ful in their practice. This use of resources can be more
time to practice looking at student work, to evaluate cost effective in improving teaching and learning than
care­fully the cognitive components of that work, and external testing alone.
to change their instructional strategies in response to
4. Invest in research and development. Bringing educa-
diverse learners’ performance and needs. Finally, there
tors to the table to help map curricular content and
are opportunities for professional learning within the
priorities can help them better focus and tailor their
peer review, audit, or moderation systems that states
instruction. Policymakers should also work to improve
or districts construct to check on PBA consistency and
standardized assessments at the federal, state, and lo-
provide feedback, as teachers discuss scoring togeth-
cal levels so that they better represent and measure
er, compare and re-score tasks, and calibrate individual
students’ abilities to reason, present, and defend their
judgments against group standards.
ideas, as well as to demonstrate their skills in authentic
2. Support capacity building at state education depart- ways. Perhaps most important, we must begin to think
ments and among consortia of states. State and dis- in terms of performance assessment sys­tems, as do the
trict leaders will need to become skilled in developing highest achieving nations and states. To support much
and managing performance assessment systems, and improved educational out­comes, we will need systems
bringing together resources for strong implementation in which standards, curriculum, instruction, and assess-
of both state and local components. Schools and dis- ment are tightly intertwined, supporting and measuring
tricts need support from the states for large-scale ef- high-quality learning in classrooms where students have
forts such as curriculum mapping, peer review, audit, or many opportuni­ties to demonstrate their knowledge
moderation systems, and for organizing uniform teach- and skills on standards-based tasks, and teachers have
er training systems. Since only classroom teachers can myriad opportunities to learn how to teach them well.
directly impact instruction and learning, a major task
5. Focus accountability systems on 21st Century skills.
of legislators and personnel in departments of educa-
Shifting the focus of assessments — from measuring
tion will be to provide assistance to the educators who
recall to measuring students’ abilities to demonstrate
must make the system work. For instance, local educa-
skills authentically — will result in new metrics of school
tors will likely need support in aligning school-based
performance. Changing what counts as assessment evi-
assessments to state standards and combining local
dence, decreasing standardized testing requirements,
assessments with statewide measures. Another key el-
and modifying the federal accountability structure could
ement is technical support for this critical work in the
help contribute toward school improvement. Currently,
form of experts embedded locally who can help guide
it is difficult to convince districts that fear sanctions to
these activities. Efforts such as the New England Col-
risk focusing on higher-order thinking skills or invest-
laborative Assessment Program show that states can
ing in assessment innovation. Both the scores that re-
overcome capacity challenges and achieve savings by
sult from assessments and the finer-grained information
working together on assessments.
about how exactly students reason, think, and perform
3. Repurpose resources. Although some methods of should be fed back to schools in ways that further both
managing performance assessments can cost more student learning and curricular innovation. All of these
than machine scor­ing of multiple choice tests (i.e., uses of assessment should lead to additional learning
when such assessments are treated as traditional ex- sup­ports for students and teachers, rather than punish-
ternal tests and shipped out to separately paid scor- ments that shut down inquiry and growth.
ers), the cost calculus changes when assessment is un-
derstood as part of teachers’ work and learning — and
built into teaching and professional development time.

Join us for our next Capitol Hill Briefing, in early 2009, when the subject turns to teaching and learning. To add your
name to our mailing list, visit www.forumforeducation.org.