CUEL Assessment Specialist Paul Zavitkovsky Describes Promising Developments in Statewide Assessment Reportage

CUEL Assessment Specialist Paul Zavitkovsky recently served on two conference panels that described innovations in statewide assessment reportage being developed in a partnership that includes Illinois’ three largest school districts and the item developer for the state’s annual accountability test for students in grades 3 through 8.  Both panels focused on work being done to report test information to educators, parents and students in more timely and useful ways.  The first panel, called “The Future of Statewide Assessment,” occurred on October 5^th at the fall conference of Illinois’ Large Unit District Association in Naperville, IL. It included senior assessment officials from Rockford SD 205, Elgin U-46, and the Chicago Public Schools.  The second, called “Advancing Equity by Bridging the Gap between Large-Scale and Classroom Assessment,” took place on October 6 at the 7^th International Conference of the Council on Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment in Chicago.  Fellow CUEL contributors Dr. Laquita Louie and Dr. Steven Tozer also participated in this panel. “It’s difficult to fathom why it’s taken so long to get here,” Zavitkovsky said, “but this good work by Elgin, Rockford and CPS may finally be getting us closer to reporting results from statewide testing that teachers, parents and students actually value.” To read Zavitkovsky’s recent thinking around improving the utility of assessment systems for educational practitioners, see here.