Vermont, which recently implemented a statewide program of portfolio assessment, has captured nationwide attention for its ambitious effort. But interest in portfolios extends far beyond the Green Mountain State. Drawing support from the growing interest in alternatives to standardized exams, teachers across the country—and across grade levels and subject areas—are exploring the uses of portfolios in their classrooms.
But some experts say the movement to use portfolios has arrived at a critical juncture. At issue, they say, is whether the attributes that attracted many educators to portfolios in the first place—for example, their role in promoting classroom-level dialogue about quality work—can be sustained as portfolios become more popular and, in some cases, mandated.
At present, experts say, there is no common definition of "portfolio" and little data describing how extensive their use may be. In some classrooms, portfolios are little more than folders containing students' assignments; in others, considerable attention is given to what pieces ought to be included in the portfolio, how the assembled pieces form a composite picture of student growth, and against what standards the work is to be evaluated. Some teachers evaluate each piece of work in the portfolio and rate the portfolio as a whole; others eschew portfolio grades altogether. "There's virtually no standard practice that we can find," says Robert Calfee, professor of education and psychology at Stanford University, who recently completed a study of teachers and schools using portfolios.
Despite such variation, experts say that portfolio users tout several benefits. Although standardized tests and many classroom assessments often reveal a child's performance in a single assessment setting, "a portfolio tells a story of what you know and how you've come to know it," says Winfield Cooper, an instructor at the University of California-San Diego and editor of Portfolio News.
When the criteria for portfolio work are made explicit, students, teachers, and parents are more likely to share an understanding of what kind of work is valued, experts say. Roberta Camp, a former assessment specialist at the Educational Testing Service, says portfolios can be a springboard for "a public dialogue in the classroom" about criteria for good work. "Portfolios make more coherent this abstract educational experience students have been going through," adds Cooper.
In addition, "I think portfolios help students take some ownership over their own work," says Cooper. Many teachers say that students become more "reflective" about their work as they ponder what kinds of material to include in a portfolio, how their work does or doesn't fit assessment criteria, and how their work, over time, shows their growth. Instead of waiting for a teacher to slap a letter grade on their products, students in some classrooms using portfolios are assessing each other and themselves, says Leon Paulson, an assessment specialist with the Multnomah Education Service District in Oregon.
Portfolios can be valuable tools for reporting pupil progress to parents, supplementing report cards and standardized test results. Some schools are even exploring the practice of having students—not teachers—take the lead in explaining their work to their parents on conference nights, says Paulson.
Finally, many educators are finding that using portfolios helps to bring about a sense of professional renewal. The portfolio movement has had a "grassroots" nature, and many teachers using portfolios report feeling a renewed commitment to improving learning in their classrooms. Among teachers using portfolios, "there is an enormous sense of commitment, revitalization, and enthusiasm," says Calfee. "Teachers and administrators are saying this is why they got into teaching."
A Critical Juncture
As more educators and policymakers become interested in portfolios, the question of standardization has become more vexing, experts say. Can the grassroots qualities of the movement be sustained if more schools, districts, and states try to implement standardized portfolio programs? This issue has risen in prominence as portfolios have become part of formal large-scale assessment programs, as in Vermont. But it is also being raised as local assessment or staff development programs attempt to build more structure and comparability into classroom portfolio use.
Some are concerned that if the uses of portfolios become more standardized, implementation may be haphazard and teachers who began using portfolios voluntarily might have to make sacrifices to conform to a rigid structure. By trying to make portfolio use more standardized and widespread, educators might "take a complex idea and trivialize, and therefore weaken, it," warns Cooper. "It's been very successful as a grassroots movement, and I kind of wish it would stay that way."
Much of the controversy relates to how portfolios might be used as part of formal assessment programs. Some fear that placing high stakes on portfolio outcomes would destroy their potency at the classroom level; others say that accountability demands require evidence of student achievement, and that portfolios offer much that standardized tests can't.
A study Calfee and associates recently conducted with nearly 100 portfolio-using teachers and schools reveals some of the ambivalence about portfolios as a means of improving classroom learning versus portfolios as a formal assessment tool. While educators are quite enthusiastic about positive effects such as improved attitudes among students and teachers, they are not at all sanguine about the uses of portfolios as a formal assessment tool. In general, says Calfee, the comments of educators using portfolios in the study revealed "a general lack of technical foundation for any of the work that's going on.... If you ask for any evidence of validity or reliability...all of the technical issues just draw a complete blank," he says. "There are some teachers who see portfolios as the reason that you don't need testing at all."
Vermont is currently struggling with using portfolios to realize twin goals of improving classroom performance and monitoring system accountability. But Education Commissioner Richard Mills says that his state's efforts have been helped by teachers' integral involvement in all aspects of creating the portfolio assessment program.
Vermont teachers were heavily involved in establishing the portfolio procedures, in developing the criteria to guide the scoring of portfolios, and in actually scoring them. Use of portfolios in a centralized assessment structure need not restrict their usefulness in local classrooms or come at the expense of teacher autonomy, Mills says. "The whole thing is owned in a very powerful way by teachers," says Mills. "There are hundreds and hundreds of teachers who are pouring enormous amounts of effort into this who would not be available to us, I think, if we said: `Okay, here's what you have to do.'"
Still, the results of Vermont's portfolio work so far show greater benefits for improving classroom instruction than for providing a technically sound barometer for accountability. Moreover, many educators outside Vermont appear skeptical, if not hostile, to the idea that portfolios should be used in large-scale assessments. "There's a sense that—if we're going to do it this way, we may as well use standardized tests," says Calfee. But "we need some kind of standards," he adds. "We can't just say: `Johnny's trying real hard.'"
Camp believes that the next few years will dictate the direction the portfolio movement may take. "I think we're at a very critical time for portfolios, and for performance assessment in general," she says. "On the one hand, there's a lot of enthusiasm and grassroots exploration," and "we're beginning to get portfolios on the local and district and state level.... Now it's time to make good, and the expectations are very high."
Unless educators make a better case for the benefits of portfolios and how they might serve as a better indicator of students' learning than other means, many may conclude that "they're a lot of work for a very uncertain advantage," says Calfee.
"Beliefs aren't enough," adds Camp. "We need examples of where we can pull it off in the next year or two, or we may lose the opportunity."