Trust your observations of how well students are learning, Brenda Grier, principal at Valley Cottage (N.Y.) Elementary School, advised the teachers in her audience. Teachers' observations and record keeping can yield a rich harvest of information that can be used to help each child individually, Grier said. "Your observations of student work are just as valuable as any standardized test—and probably more so."
Grier emphasized the many ways that teachers can check on students' progress in language arts. For example, students can display their speaking skills through oral presentations and "book talks." Students' writing proficiency can be assessed through the use of portfolios and teachers' notes about how skilled children are in working through the stages of the writing process. Teachers can check on students' vocabulary development by noting what words students use in their writing. Of course, standardized tests in writing and reading add another perspective on students' growth. Ultimately, schools should strive for an assessment approach that is balanced and comprehensive, said Grier. "We need to use a range of assessments so that you know what the kids know."
Not holding the same expectations for all students amounts to "education fraud," charged Christopher Cross of the Council for Basic Education, in his call for rigorous content standards.
Students in high-poverty schools are led to believe they are doing the same sort of work as their more affluent peers, Cross stated, but assessment results indicate otherwise. Students in high-poverty schools are capable of achieving more, Cross maintained, but they must be held to the same standards as students in high-income schools.
Such standards must be accessible, Cross added, noting that some standards are so vaguely written, it would be difficult to determine if students had met them.
Take, for example, this 8th grade standard: Students will apply formulas to solve problems in science. "It lacks clarity and specificity," said Cross. Contrast that "bad" standard with this "good" standard: Students will select and use appropriate units and tools—customary and metric—to measure weight, length, mass, monetary value, time, and temperature with an appropriate degree of accuracy. This standard is better, Cross explained, because "it's specific, it's clear, it's measurable—it's accessible."
Communicating with parents is essential when schools decide to implement performance assessment, said Grace Pung Guthrie, codirector of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Training in Education.
Parents should receive the same training on performance assessment that teachers receive, Pung Guthrie maintained. "Let parents in from the very beginning if they have the will, time, and desire to participate," she said. Identify the parent leaders, and they'll be a "tremendous resource" in persuading other parents to keep an open mind and accept alternative forms of assessment.
Keeping an open mind is also something educators must do when using performance assessment, stated Pung Guthrie. Too often, she noted, teachers "listen for the answers [from students] they expect to hear." But because students from different cultural backgrounds may have different ways of looking at a problem, said Pung Guthrie, "the readers, the raters, the scorers, and the panel of experts watching the kids doing the performance" must understand and accommodate those students who have different ways of demonstrating their understanding.
New brain imaging technologies that, today, seem futuristic will help teachers identify why some students are successful learners—and why some students aren't, said Robert Sylwester of the University of Oregon, author of A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator's Guide to the Human Brain.
For example, brain imaging technology can show what happens in a child's brain from the time she didn't know a concept to the time she mastered it, Sylwester explained. A series of images, taken over time, will show "which systems shut down and what was involved in activating new systems." Successful learners, he said, "shut down systems as the brain becomes efficient."
What strategies will teachers use to help unsuccessful learners? "I don't know," Sylwester conceded. "But at least we'll have the technology that will allow us to make those observations." And those observations, he suggested, may one day give teachers the information they need to help students make an inefficient system more productive.