We understand far more about how the human brain works and how we acquire, recall, and apply knowledge than our assessment systems reflect. For students to retain information, they need to apply that knowledge in multiple contexts and reflect on the learning process. This can look like semester-long projects, real-world scenarios, internships, or short reflections (written or oral) on the learning experience.
Without opportunities to deeply explore a topic or skill outside the classroom and practice different ways to apply that knowledge, students might be able to perform on a test but won’t be able to use what they know outside of school. Standardized tests alone don’t provide that opportunity. We need modern ways to accurately report and communicate how young people build knowledge and skills.
Standardized, high-stakes summative assessment practices – especially annual, large-scale tests – continue to serve as the main form of evaluating student achievement. Learning for mastery is different from learning for performance on a test.
Test preparation can take up an enormous amount of time in the classroom and narrow the focus of teaching to subjects likely to be tested. This largely goes against what the science of learning tells us about how students learn and retain information. By remaining rigid, our traditional assessment approaches continue to emphasize traditional content knowledge over broader skill sets necessary in today’s increasingly global and complex world.
States need to make big changes to reduce the amount of time learners spend on large-scale standardized assessments so that educators can spend more time in class or outside of school walls in partnership with the community, facilitating learning activities that align with the science of learning. In a 2023 survey from EdWeek Research Center, a majority of educators reported feeling limited by state-mandated tests: “[D]espite feeling a large amount of pressure to have their students perform well, teachers don’t find the tests useful.”
When students experience mastery, they gain confidence in their abilities to learn, which, in turn, can increase motivation and engagement.
The science of learning shows that mastering content means acquiring the component skills and knowledge, integrating them with practice, and applying that skill and knowledge in new contexts. Transferring learning into new contexts requires intentional teaching with enough opportunity to practice and reflect in increasingly novel situations. When students experience mastery, they gain confidence in their abilities to learn, which, in turn, can increase motivation and engagement. When we force learners to move on after taking a high-stakes exam or receiving a static grade, we miss the opportunity to work toward mastery and ongoing growth. Designing for mastery and transfer helps students continue learning and apply that learning to the changing world. This is a critical part of shifting away from a traditional, one-size-fits-all system to a more innovative and future-focused competency-based system, where students move ahead based on mastery, rather than compliance.
Performance-based assessments and tasks, including portfolios, presentations, or multi-step projects, better reflect the science of learning and allow students to “utilize a range of skills to demonstrate their knowledge of learning content.” These can be more flexible and open-ended than multiple-choice tests. Local assessment systems based on performance assessment allow students to develop, demonstrate, and get feedback on essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions, ideally aligned with a portrait of a graduate or vision for the competencies learners should leave a system with. Student performance assessment allows students to show what they know in relevant, rigorous ways and provides data that helps students, teachers, and families to know where students are in their learning.
Large-scale assessments can still play a role in ensuring equity in a balanced assessment system, but balance is the key.
Reducing the focus on large-scale standardized assessments does not mean lowering expectations. Performance-based assessments shift our focus to deeper learning goals that support mastery and prepare students for the future. Large-scale assessments can still play a role in ensuring equity in a balanced assessment system, but balance is the key. Local assessment systems can give us real-time information about how students are doing in their learning; however, too often, we look to large-scale standardized tests as the sole measure to track student performance and judge school quality. Effective local assessment systems require supporting educators to develop assessment literacy to create, assess, and calibrate evidence of learning. We can use external assessments to check that local assessment systems provide reliable information and to monitor equity. In this role, the large-scale assessment helps validate and improve our local systems.
There are a few promising examples of school systems that are reducing the footprint of large-scale external assessments — an essential step in making room for performance-based and authentic assessment. Up to 13 states are considering or piloting through-year assessments. For example, Montana received a one-year waiver from federal assessment requirements and is now piloting ways to measure student progress through smaller assessments throughout the year. These “testlets,” as the state calls them, will give teachers more timely information that they can act on instead of waiting until end-of-year results.
The New York Performance Standards Consortium has been doing a version of local performance assessment (with a waiver for reduced NY Regents testing) for over two decades. Students take the English language arts Regents exam while completing at least three summative performance assessments in the remaining core subjects – a history research paper, a scientific experiment or engineering design task, and a mathematical thinking problem-solving task. All of these are supported by a local assessment system with multiple opportunities to practice application in various performance assessment tasks embedded in the curriculum.
Across the nation, we see examples of states exploring alternatives to traditional graduation requirements. New Mexico’s Graduation Equity Initiative replaces standardized-test-based requirements with alternative pathways such as portfolios or community-based capstone projects, and Washington has established eight pathway options for students to choose from to demonstrate college and career readiness. In Connecticut, starting with the class of 2023, students participate in a one-credit mastery-based diploma assessment. Additionally, the Carnegie Foundation recently partnered with ETS to create a robust, scalable suite of assessment tools to capture the full range of skills that students today need to succeed and is working with a handful of states (Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) to pilot them.
Until we rethink assessment systems to be truly performance-based, we won’t be teaching kids in the ways we know they actually learn.
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