Meeting AYP: Assessments more than Accountability

Article by Anne-Evan Williams, Education Specialist, Let's Go Learn

With the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), there has been a significant increase in the discussion of assessment and accountability.  Assessment is now being used to gauge school and teacher accountability, as well as determine the academic success of individual students.  But can assessments be used to encourage student development and growth as well?

To begin, let's look at some basic requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.  A primary goal of NCLB is that every student will demonstrate grade-level achievement in core subject areas by 2014.  Under this goal, each state is mandated to create state academic standards for each grade level.  Assessment of reading and math standards, again by individual state design and implementation, is mandated for grades 3-8, as well as at least once during high school.  By the 2007-2008 school year, NCLB requires testing of science standards as well.  The progress of each school or district towards this goal (including the narrowing of education gaps, especially those of minority groups and low-income and special needs students) is called Adequate Yearly Progress.  At the conclusion of the 2004-2005 school year, over 21,000 schools across the country did not meet AYP.

Whether a school meets AYP goals each year is determined in large part by those state assessments, thus tying state assessments to school and teacher accountability.   Assessments also measure a student's individual growth.  But can tests be used for more than just measurement?  Can they be used to encourage student learning and support student growth?  Can assessments go beyond simply measuring AYP, and actually help schools meet their goals?

To answer these questions, we should first look at the different varieties of assessments.  Assessments may be either summative or formative.  Summative tests measure results at the conclusion of instruction, like an end-of-chapter test.  Formative assessments measure progress.  Many state tests are summative, measuring knowledge students are expected to have achieved by the conclusion of a grade level.

Assessments can also be either criterion-referenced or norm-referenced.  Criterion-referenced tests are tests that measure performance against established criteria.  Norm-referenced tests measure performance against others' performance on the same test.  Standardized tests are norm-referenced tests, and often return a "percentile" score, comparing a student's performance to the pool of students who took the test.

In the end, it is what we do with the assessment data in our schools that matters.  When instruction is based on summative, norm-referenced assessments, like most states' annual assessments, we run the risk of "teaching to the test."  In this situation, it is not the individual needs of the students that are the focus of instruction.  Instead, it is the end result of annual assessment that becomes the focus. 

Formative, criterion-referenced assessments, however, give diagnostic results.  Regular assessment, using criterion-referenced test items, provides educators constant, consistent feedback about the progress of individual children.  Instruction driven by this kind of regular assessment meets the specific individual needs of students, encouraging them to learn, grow, and succeed. 

Meeting AYP is more than just raising state assessment scores.  It's about meeting the individual learning needs of individual students.  It's about closing the gaps in student learning.  Monitoring AYP means monitoring your students.  This means assessing students regularly and diagnostically, and designing instruction that meets these needs, not instruction that meets the test.

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