Vermont’s Enlightened State Board of Education
The Vermont State Board of Education recently released a more than reasonable “Statement on Assessment and Accountability” that I certainly wish would be read and adopted by other leaders across other states.
They encourage their educators to “make use of diverse indicators of student learning and strengths,” when measuring student learning and achievement, the growth of both over time, and especially when using such data to inform their practice. The use of multiple and diverse indicators (i.e., including traditional and non-traditional tests, teacher-developed assessments, and student work samples) is in line with the professional measurement and assessment standards. At the same time, however, they must also “document the opportunities schools provide to further the goals of equity and [said] growth.”
As per growth on standardized tests in particular, and particularly in the case of value-added models (VAMs), they write that such tests and test uses cannot “adequately capture the strengths of all children, nor the growth that can be ascribed to individual teachers. And under high-stakes conditions, when schools feel extraordinary pressure to raise scores, even rising scores may not be a signal that students are actually learning more. At best, a standardized test is an incomplete picture of learning: without additional measures, a single test is inadequate to capture a years’ worth of learning and growth.” This too aligns with the standards of the profession.
They continue, noting that “the way in which standardized tests have been used under federal law as almost the single measure of school quality has resulted in the frequent misuse of these instruments across the nation.” Hence, they also put forth a set of guiding Vermont’s Enlightened State Board of Education |: