                                                              
| New York State’s 1994 Assessment Reform |
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| Written by Robert A. Southworth Jr. |
| Friday, 09 December 2005 13:55 |
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New Testing Policy The Council proposed and the Board of Regents approved a new testing policy with two components: (a) on-demand Performance Assessment using a variety of assessment formats and (b) curriculum-embedded performance assessment where assessment activities take place over extended periods of time and include Extended Tasks as well as complex projects (Strategic Plan for Developing the New York State Assessment System, 1994). State Use of Performance Assessments Not all of the assessments in place in New York State are traditional standardized multiple-choice tests. Some of these assessments include or are solely performance-based measures and therefore are already reforms in place. Researchers note that these performance assessments, including the fourth-grade science Performance evaluation Test (PET), the fifth-grade Performance Assessment in Math (PAM), the foreign language proficiency tests, and the extended writing parts of Regents exams are performance assessments already in use statewide (Darling-Hammond & Ancess, 1994). In addition to these components of the old testing policy that are performance-based, there are teachers and schools who have applied for variances and options from the state system in order to construct their own performance assessments. Variances Variances are policy mechanisms that allow schools to use (subject to State approval) an alternative to state testing policy. For example, many of the schools in New York State that are associated with the Coalition of Essential Schools have variances from Regents exams. Another example of variance in testing are schools that apply for a “20-35% option” to the Regents exams in a specific Discipline. Instead of a complete variance, these schools decide to develop 20-35% of the assessment task, locally. They substitute their performance-based option and students complete the remaining 65-80% of the state assessment. Each year teachers in these schools construct performance assessments and include them with the remainder of the state-developed examination. Pilot Assessments Pilot assessments designed by leading edge teachers, partial or complete variances from state assessments, and network developed assessments exemplify alternative state policy that supports developing teacher Capacity of assessment knowledge. The alternative assessment policy “system aims to incorporate instructionally useful, curriculum-embedded work while meeting the technical requirements generally applied to large- Scale systems” (Darling-Hammond & Falk, 1997, p. 65). As these examples show, assessment practice and policy that help to push and pull each other along are more likely to win acceptance in the field where the ultimate test of any policy or practice is always judged. |