In Boston, at the public meeting, the U.S. Department Education director Joanne Weiss asked a group of assessment experts to summarize their thinking about how her agency could improve the United State’s educational assessment systems.
The response of ‘good luck’ came from scientist Lauress Wise who works for Virginia-based Human Resources Research Organization. The crack drew laughter in the crowd of federal officials, state assessment directors and test vendors. It also highlighted the challenges the department faces in spending $350 million in economic stimulus money to aid states in developing assessments in math and reading.
Three common themes emerged from the meeting:
States should consider devising assessments to assist instructional practices on top of the annual tests that are now in place thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act.
Teachers have to become more involved in the use and scoring of assessments and the Dept of Education should seek to structure state consortia in such a manner that the one-time supply of money will create sustained work.
The meeting was held to assist officials to gain input for the design of the competition of the Race to The Top program that was built under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Education Dept. says it will issue a final competition notice and application guideline for the assessment funding.
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