Last Week, Next Up on Testing

The paper we released last Monday is the first in a series to explore what the next generation of assessments might look like. I received many many emails and comments over the past week, some via our online discussion. A quick recap from all of that:

First, there is a surprisingly strong reaction to the term “21st century skills.” Most wanted to say something about how important and significant these skills are to the students they teach or know. And in general there was agreement that there is a set of “21st century” skills that students need more now than before. But the term “21st century skills” seemed like an unpromising default to many, a way of avoiding specificity. One comment was particularly pessimistic but perhaps a fair point: “It’s a meaningless term—by the time we figure out what it means, it will be the 22nd century. Then what?” As an aside, I initially avoided the term but decided to take it on to see if I could push past the platitudes.

Second, there is a lot of interest at the local level in the new assessment tools and quite a few questions came in about which ones worked best, which ones should teachers/schools/districts use. My response is that there isn’t one tried and tested (sorry for pun) assessment that districts and schools should adopt and start using. The CWRA, which I profiled in the report, is one example—and I think a good one—of how schools are trying out new forms of assessment that measure reading, writing and math skills and problem-solving, inquiry and decision-making skills. The larger point is not that this is the right test for every school or district, but that this is the right direction for assessment.

Related to this is the problem of cost. There was a lot of concern about finding funds for assessments like the CWRA. “Even if my school wanted to try this,” wrote one teacher about the CWRA, there’s no way they would spend any extra money on it. This isn’t surprising, wrote Jack Beirwirth, who is the superintendent of Long Island’s Herricks Public Schools, the first public school district to use the CWRA. We’re all cutting back, he said, on programs, services and jobs. But the CWRA is well-worth the extra cost--teaching and measuring critical thinking and analytical reasoning are among our goals, he explains. Herricks also became one of four school districts participating independently in the 2006 PISA.

There were also a lot of comments about breaking down the distinction between instruction and assessment. Can we “embed” assessment in teaching, so that teachers can learn how their students are doing and improve their practice at the same time. So that assessment is not seen as a series of burdensome tests but also a tool for continuous learning. This isn’t easy—it requires teachers who know how to use assessment both for generating summative information and to inform their daily practice. But it can be done--see Paul Curtis’ description of New Tech High's approach.

Emerging technologies play a big role in this (I received several emails asking “what about technology?”). Our next paper on assessment--this one by Bill Tucker-- will examine how information technology can be used to improve assessment.