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https://www.moedu-sail.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CFA-Handouts-for-B-Meaningful-Learning-Targets.pdf

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https://www.moedu-sail.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CFA-Infographic-Supports-June-2017.pdf

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https://dpi.wi.gov/strategic-assessment/cycles-assessment/formative/-resources-professional-development

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Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

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Engaging in the Formative Assessment Process

Our goal is to provide access to a variety of resources to help educators, teams, schools, and districts implement a high quality formative assessment process.

1. Plan learning targets -->
2. Use teacher designed formative practices--> 3.Interpret evidence -->
4. Provide formative
feedback to student-->
5. Adjust current learning
goals-->

*Continue the process

Please Note:
The Wisconsin Department of Instruction tries to use the term "formative assessment process" -- the overall cycle shown above -- and "formative practices" -- the teacher strategies that drive this process in lieu of "formative assessments." This is because the strategic use of formative practices to elicit feedback from students is not a test event, but rather an instructional process.

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Engaging in the Formative Assessment Process Our goal is to provide access to a variety of resources to help educators, teams, schools, and districts implement a high quality formative assessment process. * Indicates the "start" of the formative assessment process 1. Plan learning targets --> 2. Use teacher designed formative practices --> 3.

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https://portal.smarterbalanced.org/library/en/formative-assessment-process.pdf

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https://smartertoolsforteachers.org/resource/242

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Smarter Tools for Teachers. Discover classroom resources you can use today. Educator-created lessons, activities, strategies, and professional development to help tailor instruction and boost learning.

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https://ccsso.org/resource-library/attributes-effective-formative-assessment

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Attributes of Effective Formative Assessment | CCSSO

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The primary purpose of the formative assessment process, as conceived in this definition, is to provide evidence that is used by teachers and students to inform instruction and learning during the teaching/learning process.

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https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-to-write-a-formative-assessment.html

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https://www.teachingquality.org/ten-tips-for-writing-common-formative-assessments/

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One of my favorite books about assessing student learning is Common Formative Assessment: A Toolkit for PLCs at Work by Kim Bailey and Chris Jakicic.

In 140 pages, Bailey and Jakicic succeed in making a process that is fundamental to driving student learning - and yet fundamentally intimidating to teachers - approachable. Each chapter is full of essential background knowledge and practical suggestions that helped me to feel more comfortable about what formative assessment should look like in my classroom.

Here's ten tips that I pulled from Common Formative Assessment that might help to strengthen the assessment practices of your learning teams:

Remember that getting information quickly and easily is essential. Assessment data is only valuable if (1). you are actually willing and able to collect it and (2). you can act on it in a timely manner. That simple truth should fundamentally change the way that you think about assessments.

Write your assessments and scoring rubrics together even if that means you initially deliver fewer common assessments. Collaborative conversations about what to assess, how to assess and what mastery looks like in action are just as valuable as student data sets.

Assess ONLY the learning targets that you identified as essential. Assessing nonessential standards just makes it more difficult to get - and to take action on - information quickly and easily.

Ask at least 3 questions for each learning target that you are trying to test. That allows students to muff a question and still demonstrate mastery. Just as importantly, that means a poorly written question won't ruin your data set.

Test mastery of no more than 3 or 4 learning targets per assessment. Doing so makes remediation after an assessment doable. Can you imagine trying to intervene when an assessment shows students who have struggled to master more than 4 learning targets?

#meneither

Clearly tie every single question to an essential learning target. Doing so makes tracking mastery by student and standard possible. Your data sets have more meaning when you can spot patterns in mastery at the target - instead of just the question - level.

Choose assessment types that are appropriate for the content or skills that you are trying to measure. Using performance assessments to measure the mastery of basic facts is overkill. Similarly, using a slew of multiple choice questions to measure the mastery of complex thinking skills is probably going to come up short.

#sheeshArne

When writing multiple choice questions, use wrong answer choices to highlight common misconceptions. The patterns found in the WRONG answers of well-written tests can tell you just as much as the patterns found in the RIGHT answers. Fill your test with careless or comical distractors and you are missing out on an opportunity to learn more about your kids.

When writing constructed response questions, provide students with enough context to be able to answer the question. Context plays a vital role in constructing a meaningful response to any question. Need proof? Find the parents of a teenage daughter who asks, "Can I go to the mall with some friends tonight?" How much you want to bet that they are going to ask a few questions before saying yes? I know I will!
#sorryReecie
Make sure that higher level questions ask students to apply knowledge and/or skills in new situations. A higher level question that asks kids to apply knowledge in the same way as they have practiced before becomes a lower level question really quickly.

The beautiful part of all of these tips, y'all, is that they are easy to understand AND easy to integrate into your process for developing common formative assessments.

So whaddya' waiting for?

______________________________
What Role do Hunches Play in a PLC? Should Learning Teams Develop Every Formative Assessment Together? More on Developing Every Formative Assessment Together Is REAL Formative Assessment Even Doable?

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Ten Tips for Writing Common Formative Assessments - Center for Teaching Quality #CTQCollab

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One of my favorite books about assessing student learning is Common Formative Assessment: A Toolkit for PLCs at Work by Kim Bailey and Chris Jakicic. In 140 pages, Bailey and Jakicic succeed in making a process that is fundamental to driving student learning - and yet fundamentally intimidating to teachers - approachable.

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https://www.solutiontree.com/free-resources/assessment/cfa

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Common Formative Assessment | Solution Tree

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In this conversational guide, the authors offer tools, templates, and protocols to incorporate common formative assessments into the practices of a PLC.

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https://learn.teachingchannel.com/formative-assessment-module-sac

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Leadership Development Module

Common formative assessments provide timely, vital feedback to transform student outcomes. Yet many teachers lack the skills to effectively create, use, and act upon these tools. This module will help your leadership team develop a shared understanding of key common formative assessment concepts and skills; assess the capacity of teacher teams to create and use common formative assessments; and support teachers in implementing common formative assessments.

Reflection Questions:
As you prepare to explore this module's resources, consider:
* What capacities do teachers need to effectively use common formative assessments?
* How equipped are teachers at our school to develop, use, and act upon common formative assessments?
* In what ways can leadership teams (including schoolwide, content, and grade-level teams) help grow our teachers' capacity to implement common formative assessments?

Video Resources

1. Guiding Instruction through CFAs
This video illustrates how the seventh grade mathematics team at Wilson Middle School modifies textbook assessments to align with district goals. Check out how the team articulates learning goals, analyzes results, uses results to inform instruction, and embraces collaboration.

2. Using CFAs to Improve Teaching and Learning
Watch how an English Language Arts content team at Covington Middle School develops, uses, and analyzes common formative assessments, and then designs a writing unit based on lessons learned from the data.

Dig Deeper

Module Handouts
Handouts designed for teams working through the module together. They include reflection sheets, readings, and group exercises.

Facilitator Guide
This guide allows an in-house facilitator to lead a team through the module's learning experience.

Feedback

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Success at the Core: Common Formative Assessment Module

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Leadership Development Module Common formative assessments provide timely, vital feedback to transform student outcomes. Yet many teachers lack the skills to effectively create, use, and act upon these tools. This module will help your leadership team develop a shared understanding of key common formative assessment concepts and skills; assess the capacity of teacher teams to create and use common formative assessments; and support teachers in implementing common formative assessments.

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by TeachThought Staff

Good assessment is frequent assessment.

Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand-the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge.

On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. More commonly, the return will be significantly lower as the wording of questions, the student's sense of self-efficacy, or other factors diminish their assessment performance. It sounds obvious, but a student is a human being with an entire universe of personal problems, distraction, and related challenges in recalling the information in the form the assessment demands.

This makes a strong argument for frequent assessment, as it can be too easy to over-react and "remediate" students who may be banging against the limits of the assessment's design rather than their own understanding. Rather than re-teaching, sometimes all that is necessary is re-measuring.

It is a huge burden (for both teachers and students) to design, write, complete, grade, and absorb the data into an instructional design sequence on a consistent basis. So why not frequent, simple assessments?
Simple Assessments
The word 'simple' here is misleading. Rather than describing the cognitive load on the student, it instead describes the complexity of the assessment form itself. The simpler the assessment-in terms of process and logistics-the more 'purely' it can function as a tool to get at what a student actually understands, and help you identify how to help them.

Then, due to their brevity, they're simple to grade-in fact, you can grade them as exit slips-which makes taking the data and informing instruction (the whole point of assessment) a much simpler process as well.
1. New Clothes
Take a given topic-thesis statements, push-pull factors, the scientific process, etc.-and describe how it can be used in some way other than how you've been taught.

Example of Student Response: We've learned the scientific process by looking at how actual scientists study new things, but the scientific process would also make an excellent tool for detectives to use while pursuing criminals. It would allow them to observe data, form theories, test theories while collecting more data, and draw conclusions that can then be judged in a court of law.
2. Dos & Don'ts
List 3 Dos and 3 Don'ts when using, applying, relating to the content (e.g., 3 Dos and Don'ts for solving an equation).

Example of Student Response: When adding fractions, DO find a common denominator, DO add the numerators once you've found a common denominators, DON'T simply add the denominators
3. Three Most Common Misunderstandings
List what you think might be the three most common misunderstandings of a given topic based on an audience of your peers.

Example of Student Response: In analyzing tone, most people probably confuse mood and tone, forget to look beyond the diction to the subtext as well, and to strongly consider the intended audience.
4. Yes/No Chart
List what you do and don't understand about a given topic-what you do on the left, what you don't on the right, but you overly-vague responses don't count. Specificity matters!

Example of Student Response: In learning about paragraph structure (Do Understand): what a topic sentence is, how many sentences a paragraph should have, that a paragraph should be about one idea; (Don't Understand) how a paragraph can have a conclusion, how to know when I've given enough supporting details in the paragraph, how to revise a paragraph
5. Three Questions
Ask three questions about the topic, then rank them in terms of their importance/value.

Example of Student Response: Low Importance: Does the prefix "tri" mean 3? Medium Importance: Is the triangle the only 3-sided geometrical figure? High Importance: Why don't triangles show up very often in nature (as so many other shapes do)?
6. Explain What Matters
Explain the most critical part of a given topic to a self-selected audience (must clarify) in two or fewer sentences. (Audience can be anyone!)

Example of Student Response: The most important part of a thesis statement is clarity and conviction, so I'll explain that one to Jay-Z: A thesis statement is kind of like the hook or title of one of your songs-it delivers the message that the song goes on to explain. Feel me?
7. Big Picture
Diagram the context-where does it fit in and how does it function in its natural "bigger picture." This is good for abstract or right-brain thinkers.

Example of Student Response: It is impossible to understand the rules we live by and how they're formed without understanding the 3 branches of government.
8. Venn Diagram
Compare/Contrast a given topic to a tangent topic (e.g., the water cycle to distillation, symbolism to allusion, etc.)

Example of Student Response: A Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting symbolism and allusion, or tone and mood.
9. Draw It
Draw what you do understand.

Example of Student Response: A drawing of what an adjective thinks about a noun, or a how much smaller in size the thousandth's place is compared to the ten's place.
10. Self-Directed Response
Prove to me you understand in diagram, written, or related form in a way that a stranger would understand.

Example of Student Response: I wrote this chorus of a song I've been thinking of that would explain this character's motivation....

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10 Simple Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds

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From 3-2-1 to Do's and Don'ts and concept maps, here are 10 simple assessments you can complete in about 90 seconds.

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eBook

Description

Formative assessment (FA) isn't new. But as our education system changes, our approaches to any instructional strategy must evolve. Learn how to put FA to work in your physical or virtual classroom.

View ebook

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Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice - NWEA

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eBook Description Formative assessment (FA) isn't new. But as our education system changes, our approaches to any instructional strategy must evolve. Learn how to put FA to work in your physical or virtual classroom. View ebook

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Research has shown that assessment is a critical part of the teaching and learning process. This statement may appear self-evident, however, this article will argue that, when teachers adopt a deliberate approach to using formative assessment practices, they will have a significant, positive impact on student achievement.

There are numerous definitions of formative assessment but perhaps the definition offered by Black (2014) is the most useful. "Assessment refers to all of those activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes "formative assessment' when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs." Marzano (2012) also describes formative assessment as a process as opposed to a specific task.

Professor John Hattie (2009) has provided evidence to support the view that there will be a noticeable difference to educational outcomes as a result of participating in a variety of formative assessment practices. He considers an effect size of greater than 0.4 to have a significant effect on student learning outcomes. The following teacher practices are among the top strategies listed (Hattie 2009, Appendix B):

* providing formative evaluation (effect size - 0.90);
* feedback (effect size - 0.73);
* questioning (effect size - 0.46).

One could argue that these practices regularly occur, however, researchers (see Black 2014) suggest that student information gained from this form of assessment does not necessarily lead to changes in teaching practice in the absence of teacher self-evaluation of lessons. This situation can be overcome by weaving formative assessment as a natural process in everyday lessons. Black (2014) certainly supports this notion when he described formative assessment as "the heart of effective teaching."

A useful source that can be used to reinforce the importance of improving our approach to assessment is the section entitled Assessment For, As and Of Learning on the Board of Studies website. These principles are clear, sensible and reinforce effective teaching practice. When you immerse yourself in the understanding that assessment is something that you do every time you teach, rather than only the 'bit' at the end of a unit of work for the purpose of making a summative judgement, then you have become more proficient in formative assessment and likely to be making a significant difference to lifting student achievement.

Following are a collection of teaching strategies and approaches that may be used to foster formative assessment in classrooms. They have been collected over many years from a wide range of sources and colleagues.

Self-Assessment is an essential component of formative assessment. For it to be effective, students must be clear about: the outcome(s) they are to achieve; the standard against which their work is assessed; the ways they can improve. Students need to be trained in becoming effective at assessing their own work (Sadler 1989). Students can be taught this skill from Kindergarten; after all, they are born with the capacity to reflect upon their own learning. How else do babies ultimately teach themselves to walk?

Using a 'traffic light' technique is an effective way of incorporating self-assessment into learning. This can be in the form of coloured stickers, or highlighter marks adjacent to syllabus outcomes or assessment tasks, to indicate student confidence in each area: green (know well), amber (semi-confident) or red (struggling). This can lead to further discussion or self-reflection. Setting a revision quiz on the syllabus points which attract a red sticker is a useful way for students to accept responsibility for learning this material and will enable teachers to evaluate student progress and adjust teaching practice. Black (2013) has some good suggestions about this technique.

Individual teachers and indeed schools, can implement formal self assessment practices by having students complete a self reflection sheet whenever they submit a formal assessment task.

Peer Assessment works on the principle, 'to teach is to know'. It ensures that students engage with the marking criteria as well as their peer's response. It enables them to develop skills in the analysis and communication of ideas. Peer assessment is highly effective when students are asked to write back to their peer with constructive suggestions for improvements. Naturally, students need to be taught how to write in an environment of trust so that their comments are viewed as helpful. Sadler (1998 in Black 2013) argues that feedback offered by peers can be quite valuable because it is often written in a way that students can understand.

Questioning - research clearly shows that effective questioning is poorly used as a means of formative assessment. On average, teachers wait 2-3 seconds after asking a question before answering it themselves (Rowe 1974 in Black 2013). As a consequence, questions are often simplistic, seek factual as opposed to analytical responses, and students tend not to answer. Imagine if we waited and allowed thinking time? Not only would this enable time for students to think deeply, either individually, in pairs, or in groups, but it will also give teachers vital information about those students who may be struggling with a particular concept. Distributing questions to all students is an important consideration if teachers are to assess understanding of concepts from all students.

It takes time to develop skills in questioning. There are a multitude of articles freely available on this topic. Consider developing a bank of questions that are designed to illicit deep thinking prior to a lesson. Two examples come to mind:

1. I recently heard Professor Wayne Sawyer (Head of Education, University of Western Sydney) describe a History lesson in which he was an observer. He saw the teacher start their first lesson on the Russian Revolution with a timeline of the events that led to the revolution in 1917. The teacher began by asking students to consider the moments listed in the timeline that might have been critical turning points in the lead up to the revolution. This question led to immediate discussion about the nature of revolutions and the impact of personalities. It is certainly a more engaging way to involve students at the start of a complex topic.

2. I recently had the good fortune to teach a Year 7 History class their first lesson on the Qin dynasty. I used a map of China showing the outline of the borders of a unified Qin dynasty and my first question, after an introduction to the topic, was "what needed to have occurred for the leader of the Qin dynasty to unite seven other warring states with each other?" I asked them to discuss with each other before accepting responses. Their answers showed a surprising level of understanding, which was a result of having the time to think.

My second question was "what sort of leader would be required to keep the dynasty united?" They identified interesting traits about good leadership, which helped them to subsequently understand the reasons why the Qin dynasty did not last as long as others. Despite only teaching this class for two lessons, using questions allowed me to compare notes with the teacher about the students who appeared to struggle as well as those whom were rather exuberant in their responses.

Questioning is a highly effective way of building formative assessment into teaching practice and when thoughtfully considered, can lead to improved learning outcomes. Hattie (2009) provides further comment on the importance of questioning as a formative assessment tool in his book "Visible Learning" (p. 182).

Feedback - " When asked to provide evidence and guidance on enhancing the quality of teaching and student performance, I'm usually equivocal about advocating quick fixes ... In the case of feedback, however, I'm prepared to state categorically that if you focus on providing students with improved, quality feedback in individual classrooms, departments and schools you'll have an almost immediate positive effect." (Steve Dinham 2008)

A great deal has been written about the importance of feedback as a means of lifting student achievement. In fact, Hattie (2009 p.173) describes feedback as "among the most powerful influences on student achievement". Well-meaning teachers writing copious amounts of feedback on assessment tasks can spend many hours marking but as Butler (1988 in Black 2013) argues, "it is the nature, rather than the amount, that is critical when giving students feedback on both oral and written work."

A final observation is that students' learning can be advanced by feedback through comments; the giving of marks - or grades - has a negative effect in that students ignore comments when marks are also given." (Butler 1988 in Black 2013). Further useful information is provided on this topic in (Black 2013 p.8).

In the spirit of offering some practical ways of complying with the research comments outlined above, the following are suggestions for consideration:

Provide individualised verbal feedback on a piece of writing or oral task during the course of a lesson while other students are working;

Give students' comments only and wait at least a day before giving any summative mark or grade. This allows time for students to self-assess based on teacher comments;

Ensure that any comments not only say what has been done well but also what needs to be done to improve;

Establish a marking information sheet to share with the entire class and provide whole-class feedback using models of student work;

Prior to distributing a task to students, ensure that marking guidelines are discussed and clearly linked to task requirements. Annotate the marking guidelines to ensure that students know what they must demonstrate. The teacher writes comments on the task and upon returning it to students (without marks), requires that they use different coloured highlighters to identify key areas. For example, where they showed analysis, synthesis, or used evidence. Students then align their own findings with a description in the marking guidelines and allocate their own mark/grade. The teacher provides their own judgement the next lesson. In my experience, teacher and student judgement often align.

There are a broad range of teaching strategies that can be used to effectively implement formative assessment practices. When these are delivered in a planned and deliberate manner, teachers will have a significant, positive impact on student learning outcomes.
Joanne Jarvis has taught extensively across NSW government schools and has worked for the NSW Board of Studies. She is currently Principal of Engadine HS.

Bibliography
NSW Board of Studies. Assessment For, As and Of Learning. http://syllabus.bos.nsw.edu.au/support-materials/assessment-for-as-and-o...

Paul Black & Dylan William (1998). (reprinted 2014 with updates) Inside the Black Box. Hawker Brownlow Education, Victoria.

Paul Black et al. (2002-reprinted in 2013). Working Inside the Black Box. Hawker Brownlow Education, Victoria.

Paul Black et al. (2013) Inside the Black Box of Assessment. Hawker Brownlow Education, Victoria.

Dinham, Steve. (2008). How To Get Your School Moving and Improving. ACER Press.

Hattie, John. (2009). Visible Learning - A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge.

Hattie, John. (2012). Visible Learning For Teachers - Maximizing Impact on Learning. NY: Routledge.

Marzano & Heflebower (2012). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills. Marzano Research Laboratory, Bloomington USA.

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Using Formative Assessment Practices to Lift Student Achievement

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Joanne Jarvis looks at the positive power of sound assessment ... Research has shown that assessment is a critical part of the teaching and learning process. This statement may appear self-evident, however, this article will argue that, when teachers adopt a deliberate approach to using formative assessment practices, they will have a significant, positive impact on student achievement.

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Much of the testing discussion in the United States today is grounded on several widely accepted notions: that we first must get the actual assessment instrument right, that there is an important distinction between "formative" and "summative" assessment, that teachers need to understand the language of assessment, and that we should drop tests on schools like "precision bombs" for the purpose of measuring a student's performance and progress.

These notions are misguided, as decades of research from around the world on what matters most in student learning demonstrates. In fact, the major purpose of assessment in schools should be to provide interpretative information to teachers and school leaders about their impact on students, so that these educators have the best information possible about what steps to take with instruction and how they need to change and adapt.

So often we use assessment in schools to inform students of their progress and attainment. Of course this is important, but it is more critical to use this information to inform teachers about their impact on students. Using assessments as feedback for teachers is powerful. And this power is truly maximized when the assessments are timely, informative, and related to what teachers are actually teaching.

We hardly need more data-schools are awash with data. Instead, we need better interpretations of these data. When we built the New Zealand school assessment system 15 years ago, we started by designing the reports, rather than the tests. The reports were piloted to ensure we met our own two criteria:

* Did the teachers and school leaders interpret the reports correctly? (And if not, we needed to change the reports.)

* Was there a consequential action from the reports?

After many iterations of the reports, we were able to meet these criteria, and then, and only then, we backfilled them with great assessment items. The reports, not the tests, are what matter to teachers and school leaders; they are hungry for information to help them know their impact on their students. At the system level, policymakers are happy to receive continual information on the status of learning in the country without all the negativity that comes with high-stakes testing. Given that the New Zealand assessment system is voluntary, it's worth noting that a majority of teachers and schools still use it today, 15 years later.

Until we see tests as aids to enhance teaching and learning, and not primarily as barometers of how much a student knows now, on this day, on this test, then developing more tests will add little, and will remain an expensive distraction. Educators need to understand what each student already knows, and where that student needs to go next in the teaching process. They need to be experts in using an array of interventions to help get their students to success, and to evaluate the impact that they've made.

As an education researcher, I know this because I spent more than 15 years collecting nearly 1,200 meta-analyses of 65,000 education studies focused on the learning of more than 250 million students around the world. Because almost any education intervention can claim some positive effect on learning, I developed a threshold to determine effect.

Far and away the most effective teaching intervention we found was what I call "visible learning": raising the quality of the feedback teachers receive about their impact. Expert teachers assess the visible impact they have on their students, constantly monitor learning and seek feedback about their teaching, and then evaluate and adjust their teaching methods based on these findings. Teachers show students how to self-assess their own performance, and discuss how they can improve. These are the major influences for raising achievement.

Students can be beneficiaries of assessment, provided we start by asking, "Who owns the test data?" The answer must be the students-it is their schooling, their lives, their futures that are at stake in classrooms-and so the focus should be first on developing "student assessment capabilities." It is then incumbent on teachers to teach students how to know when the best time to assess their learning is, and how to interpret the information from the tests. This is the core idea of what we call formative interpretation-students learning to know what to do next in light of their progress.

The difference between formative and summative is important. As the University of Illinois assessment expert Bob Stake once put it, "When the cook tastes the soup, it is formative; when the guests taste the soup, it is summative." Both can be valuable, and it is crucial to note that they do not refer to the tests. The same measure can be used for formative or summative interpretations.

So to speak of formative assessment is misleading, as it is the interpretation during the learning that is critical. But if we instead jump straight to "student assessment capabilities," we avoid false distinctions, we place the students back at the center, and we are happy only when students understand their own learning based on test evidence. This is a powerful call to action for teachers-to learn about their own impact from assessments, and to teach students to do what they are asked themselves to do in their teaching, which is to evaluate the impact of learning.

This also means we do not need the notion of "teacher assessment literacy"-why should teachers be asked to learn the language of measurement people? Instead, we measurement people should learn how to speak in the language of learning and teaching and provide interpretations that are in turn correctly interpreted by teachers, with consequential actions and decisions. Similarly, we need reports from student assessments that help students understand their own progress in learning-what they can do, what they cannot yet do, where to go next. If only tests were created with these aims.

Assessment can be powerful in classes, schools, and school systems, but we need to stop the high-stakes methods and the overreliance on developing tests to maximize precision. We need to instead focus on the power of assessment as feedback to help teachers maximize their impact, and ask teachers to teach students how to interpret their own information from assessments.

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We Aren't Using Assessments Correctly (Opinion)

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Much of the testing discussion in the United States today is grounded on several widely accepted notions: that we first must get the actual assessment instrument right, that there is an important distinction between "formative" and "summative" assessment, that teachers need to understand the language of assessment, and that we should drop tests on schools like "precision bombs" for the purpose of measuring a student's performance and progress.