Assessment
How to Know When Each Student Has Acquired the Knowledge and Skills
Teachers use a variety of methods to assess and monitor the progress of student learning (e.g., tests, quizzes, assignments, exhibitions, projects, performance tasks, portfolios).1
Evaluating student work and providing specific feedback is an essential part of instruction. Parents need to know how well their children are progressing; students need to see what they have learned; educators need reliable data to drive instruction; and districts and policy-makers need to know how well the education system is preparing students for high school and beyond. "Everything students do during instruction provides an opportunity for monitoring their progress."2
Ongoing progress monitoring is an essential part of instruction. For example, reports, homework, benchmark assessments, and answers to questions in class all help teachers identify how well students are learning.
In the Spotlight
Louis Pasteur Fundamental Middle School, San Juan Unified School District, a 2009 California Distinguished School
Pasteur Fundamental Middle is featured on the California Department of Education's (CDE) Closing the Achievement Gap Web site for its signature practice, Assessment Driven Instructional Planning. This exemplary practice addresses several of the CDE’s 12 Recommendations for Middle Grades Success including instruction, assessment, and intervention and professional learning.
Pasteur Middle School’s Assessment Driven Instructional Planning is a school wide practice that was adopted in 2006 in response to lackluster school wide API (Academic Performance Index) scores. While undertaken to improve learning for all students, the primary target of the plan was the socioeconomically disadvantaged students, who comprised approximately 28 percent of the school’s population.
Focusing particular effort in the area of math, due to historically low scores on the California Standards Tests (CSTs), the plan to improve proficiency used a practice called, “The Cycle of Inquiry.” Newly formed leadership teams, comprised of teachers and site administrators, identified developmental needs and designed a plan to meet those needs by analyzing data and creating Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART) goals.
Implementation of the practice was the catalyst for many changes at Pasteur Fundamental Middle School. Cross curricular teams built relationships and developed strategies to engage high-risk students. Teachers questioned standard methods of curriculum delivery and, through collaboration, developed and used new strategies to improve student success. Lunch time study halls were created, and counselors found new ways to work with teachers to encourage parental involvement. A release day allowed team members to develop and share focused strategies. For example, a warm-up curriculum piece, called Cowbells, was created by combining the concept of the week with bell-work.
After implementing these practices, Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores increased in every department. English-language arts scores rose seven points overall, science jumped 14 points, and all areas of mathematics boasted double digit increases. The targeted socioeconomically disadvantaged students scored 17-18 points higher than the white (not of Hispanic origin) group.
Louis Pasteur Fundamental Middle School is one of the schools featured on the CDE Closing the Achievement Gap Web site. The site contains helpful information, research, and success stories including signature practices from some of California’s Distinguished Schools.
In addition, there is more statewide summative testing at the middle grades level than at the elementary level. For example, middle grades testing includes:
- California Alternate Proficiency Assessment (CAPA) for special education students with significant cognitive disabilities (in place of the CSTs).
- California English Language Development Test (CELDT).
- California Standards Tests (CSTs)—English-language arts and mathematics.
- California Standards Tests (CSTs)—history-social science and science.
- California Writing Standards Test.
- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a criterion-referenced test on reading, mathematics, writing, civics, economics, and U.S. history for eighth graders. Eighth-grade students take the science test every five years, but do not take all of the above NAEP tests. Only a small sample of California students take these tests.
- Physical Fitness Testing (PFT).3
Less than two (2) percent of the school year is spent on statewide testing in grade eight (600 minutes), and significantly less than that in grades six (320 minutes) and seven (575 minutes). Until 2009, English learners who had been in the U.S. for less than 12 months or who had been in Spanish instruction also had to take the Aprenda 3 in grades five through eleven. In the beginning of 2009, the Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS) replaced the Aprenda 3 far all grades. For additional information, please refer to the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program: Annual Report to the Legislature (DOC; 126KB; 14).
The chart used to calculate testing minutes, 2010 Standardized Testing and Reporting Item and Time Charts (DOC; 59KB; 7), is on the CDE Web site.
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Footnotes
1 Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage School Self-Study and Rating Rubric (DOC; 575KB; 9)
2Reading/Language Arts (RLA) Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (PDF; 6MB, 386) Sacramento: California Department of Education, 2007, 259.
3California Assessment System, California Department of Education.
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