The Source

To be fair, we engaged in some light test prep at other times during the school year by asking students to answer a randomly selected released item as a “Bell Ringer” or “Ticket Out the Door” activity, but ultimately as soon as flowers started blooming, it was “go time” for... Read the full article >

Carmen Schools of Science and Technology, a network of schools in Wisconsin, encountered this challenge firsthand when they adopted the Illustrative Math curriculum. They had a strong curriculum, but they needed interim assessments to be able to check students’ learning progress in their curriculum and standards throughout the year. Seeking... Read the full article >

Their report, State Education Agencies as Agents of Change: What It Will Take for the States to Step Up On Education Reform, noted that SEAs—once small-time agencies focused on managing federal programs and compliance with legal obligations—had to take on unprecedented demands. State education agencies sometimes found themselves overwhelmed by... Read the full article >

Our current educational accountability system, which depends on large-scale, summative assessments aligned with state standards has been, at best, a missed opportunity. Although institutions are expected to improve teaching and learning based on assessment results, these assessments only provide evidence at the end of the academic year, restricting any real... Read the full article >

In 2021, the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) approved Cognia’s participation in the state’s four-year school turnaround pilot program. Two schools that were participating in the pilot program—Hawkins Mill Elementary School and Trezevant High School in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) district—selected our Office of School Transformation as their turnaround... Read the full article >

The first step to drive intensive school improvement and school turnaround is to conduct an in-depth Diagnostic Review. Whether for schools needing targeted or comprehensive support or to address pockets of underperformance within the education ecosystem, the Diagnostic Review process identifies pathways for improvement through an in-depth review and analysis... Read the full article >

For teachers, understanding what students know and can do requires teachers to navigate a broad array of assessment approaches, all of which are combined in so-called “balanced assessment systems” that provide opportunities for educators to: Verify learning of a specific unit of instruction Determine whether and how students are struggling... Read the full article >

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the focus and process of accreditation shifted from a ten-year evaluation of the accomplishments of an institution’s past decade to a forward-looking process examining what an institution is striving to accomplish in the following five years. Modern accreditation examines the current and future... Read the full article >

But classroom observations can be challenging to implement at the school, district, and state levels. Some research on the effectiveness of classroom observation raises concern about potential bias in ratings and questions the tools’ alignment with what they purport to measure or what matters to improve learning. Equally significant, many... Read the full article >

Developing an alternate assessment goes beyond compliance with regulations. Such an assessment must be built on the determination and passion to provide students with significant cognitive disabilities authentic ways to demonstrate what they know and can do related to the academic standards for their state. As a former teacher of... Read the full article >