Throughout the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era, and especially following Race to the Top–two notable federal policies—NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments and other standardized interim assessments have become a common fixture of the “assessment culture” in American elementary and middle schools. In Illinois, for example, 70% of Illinois school districts now spend roughly $50 million annually to support standardized interim testing. CUEL’s Paul Zavitkovsky summarizes evidence from standardized interim assessments that introduces potential concerns about the widespread use of such assessments. Zavitkovsky shared his analysis and conclusions in two recent presentations—one at the 6th Annual Symposium of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (Urbana, IL) and one at the 2021 convening of CREATE – Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness Conference (Asheville, NC).
Access the CREA presentation here.
Access the CREATE presentation here.
In both presentations, Zavitkovsky illustrates why the reporting strategies that most interim tests use create tacit, institutional support for one-skill-at-a-time teaching and learning strategies that Martin Haberman once described as “The Pedagogy of Poverty.”