sessments served important purposes in Tennessee’s
districts and schools, they often failed to provide teachers with instructionally useful data and often failed to
measure students’ mastery of the skills needed to succeed in college and career. For this reason, when new,
college and career ready standards were implemented
in Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Education
took advantage of this opportunity and planned to implement an aligned, high-quality assessment in the
2014-15 school year.
During the 2014 legislative session, Senate Bill 1835/
House Bill 1549 delayed the implementation of an
aligned, college and career-ready assessment which
was set to replace the current TCAP assessments in
English language arts and math in the 2014-15 school
year. This legislation also called for a request for proposal for a new assessment system to be selected
through a competitive bidding process.28 This delay in
implementation of a college and career ready assessment had significant implications for teachers and students in classrooms around the state.
In November 2014, the state announced that Measurement, Inc. will provide the new statewide assessment,
which will be called TNReady. While the selection of the
TNReady assessment is an important step in the right
direction, there is still work to be done. Now that the
TNReady assessment has been selected, it is imperative that this assessment is implemented effectively
and that teachers and students are provided with the
supports they need to make a successful transition to
a new assessment. Additionally, it is important to work
toward continual improvement of the assessment to
ensure that it is high-quality and well-aligned to Tennessee’s State Standards.
FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Summative assessments are given at the end of
instructional units or school years to evaluate students’
progress toward mastery on a set of academic standards.
State standardized assessments such as TCAPs or
EOCs are examples of summative assessments given
in Tennessee. Formative assessments are used to
monitor student learning throughout the school
year. Formative assessments provide teachers
and students with ongoing feedback on students’
progress toward mastery on specific academic
standards.
More
specifically,
formative
assessments help students identify strengths
and opportunities for growth in different
subject areas. Formative assessments help
educators better understand student needs
and adjust their instruction to improve
their students’ learning outcomes.
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