"Teacher, is this going to be on the exam?" This familiar question highlights a fact-of-life in our educational system - "the test often drives the curriculum." If an education reform emphasizes problem solving and applying hands-on skills, then a test that rewards repetition of memorized facts would be inappropriate. Instead an assessment that matches and reinforces the stated education reform goals might ask students to design and conduct an experiment or design and implement a solution for a school or community issue.
Standards-based reform maintains that we should judge students relative to their mastery of the standards that describe what we expect them to know and be able to do. This criterion-based testing differs from norm-based testing where students are compared to each other. In one case, students might receive poor grades for being in the bottom 25% when, in fact, they had mastered the required material. Or students might be rewarded for being in the top 25% even though they and everyone else performed far below the expected standard.
Many educators favor a combination of traditional multiple choice tests and performance assessments. The former are much less expensive, easier to administer and can generate many data points to promote greater reliability, especially when used to evaluate knowledge of facts and mastery of basic skills. Alternative assessments such as performance assessments tend to have greater validity in measuring the kinds of knowledge and skills that indicate whether students have mastered and can apply a subject rather than simply perform rote techniques or repeat memorized facts. Coupled with a scoring guide, they can give a much more detailed and sophisticated accounting of what the student knows and does not know.
FairTest Principles provide a vision of how to transform assessment systems and practices as part of wider school reform, with a particular focus on improving classroom assessment while ensuring large-scale assessment also supports learning.
If an assessment is to be truly meaningful and effective, the results should make a difference. This accountability can occur at many levels ranging from promotion of a student to rewards or mitigation measures for a school or district or changes to a state's public education system.