state examples

The purpose of this study was to: 1) determine the amount of money a typical state would incur to implement a high-quality assessment (HQA) system including performance components in comparison to the amount currently being spent on their state assessment, and 2) determine if various cost-...

A number of factors account for the failure of performance assessment to capture a large role in achievement testing in the U.S., and this history can inform educators and education policymakers looking for better ways to test students and schools in an era of standards-based accountability.  ...

This report shows how the design of high school graduation policies can have important consequences for teaching, learning, and student attainment. It contrasts the results of single-test approaches to graduation with those of states using a broader range of measures to award a high school...

This paper by Raymond L. Pecheone and Stuart Kahl describes efforts by states to use performance assessment in large-scale state accountability systems and highlights promising practices that can a basis for broadening how the nation approaches assessement and accountability. Lessons from...

This paper offers a retrospective research study of performance assessment initiatives beginning in the 1990s up to today.  The study addresses three specific questions: 

• What were the conditions that helped sustain some of the programs? 

• What were the challenges that led to...

This Oregon Essential Skills and Local Perormance Assessment Manual describes the guidelines for Oregon's approach to using locally developed performance assessments to assess student mastery of the state's essential skills framework. In addition, the manual describes how performance assessment...

This primer is created for state policymakers seeking to modify instruction and assessment policies to better engage today’s students. The primer defines deeper learning, explains how it overlaps with other active learning strategies and describes how it can be, and is being, accomplished at the...

This report is aimed at supporting state boards of education that are working on providing significantly more students with deeper learning opportunities and facilitating board-level conversations on key related topics. The report provides foundational principles that underlie deeper learning,...