52 Principal Leadership May 2017

Assessment Literacy

HOW TO IMPLEMENT

Principal Leadership May 2017 53

Assessment has become a toxic word in

education in some places, yet assessment

practices represent a critically important part of

every school principal’s job.

While the word often brings to mind

state-mandated standardized tests, assessment

is simply a process of gathering evidence to inform educa-

tion-related decisions and to advance student learning. The

recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

encourages educators to use assessments in this way. For

example, under ESSA, comprehensive literacy instruction is

defined as using a variety of valid and reliable assessments

to identify students’ learning needs, inform instruction, and

monitor progress and the effects of instruction. In other

words, the federal law now describes literacy instruction in

terms of how educators incorporate assessments before,

during, and after learning.

While ESSA explicitly highlights the importance of a varied

system of assessment for literacy instruction, assessment

is also a key part of effective instruction across disciplines.

By developing comprehensive

assessment practices, principals

can capitalize on opportunities under

ESSA to enhance student learningBY CARA JACKSON, AMELIA WENK

GOTWALS, AND BETH TARASAWA

54 Principal Leadership May 2017

Recent research suggests that both

principals and teachers find many types

of assessments useful. Yet, while more

than 90 percent of teachers say they use

data to adjust instructional strategies,

nearly 30 percent did not feel prepared to

interpret results. These findings suggest

that teachers need support to consis-

tently and effectively use assessment to

improve instruction and support student

learning. Principals need to provide addi-

tional training and feedback on teaching

practice to support teachers’ use of

assessment for learning.

Dependable Evidence Assessment-literate educators under-

stand how to gather dependable

evidence and how to use both the

process and results productively to

support student achievement by

providing feedback that includes

guidance to improve learning.

According to the definition

developed by the National Task Force

on Assessment Education, assessment-

literate educators understand the

importance of:

• Beginning assessment with a clear

purpose; that is, a clear sense of

who will use the assessment results

to inform specific instructional

decision(s).

• Starting with clear learning target(s)

to be assessed.

• Building and/or using high-

quality assessments that can

provide dependable evidence

of each student’s current level

of achievement.

• Communicating results in ways that

assure understanding by recipients.

• Linking assessment and

student motivation in ways that

encourage all students to strive for

academic success.

Three Essential FactorsPrincipals can play a key role in creating

productive assessment environments

within schools by ensuring essential

conditions are in place.

First, principals must embrace

the concept of balanced assessment

systems that rely on a combination of

classroom, interim, and annual assess-

ments to provide information needed

by various instructional decision-makers.

Second, achievement expecta-

tions should be defined in terms

of standards arranged in logically

sequenced learning progressions

within and across grade levels in

a manner consistent with the way

learning unfolds.

The third essential condition is to

make sure stakeholders involved in

assessment selection or development

are prepared to create high-quality

assessment systems, as indicated by

their ability to:

• Select a proper assessment method

that fits each relevant target.

• Gather only as much information as

is needed to inform the decision to

be made.

• Create quality assessment exercises

and scoring schemes.

• Minimize relevant sources of bias

that can distort results.

• Communicate results to the

intended users in a timely and

understandable manner.

Finally, all stakeholders must under-

stand when and how to engage students

in the self-assessment process so they

know the learning targets, where they are

in relation to those learning targets, and

what they need to do to achieve targets.

Principals can shape the organizational

and individual factors that facilitate data

use by providing protocols for data

interpretation, establishing a climate of

collegiality, and allocating scheduled

collaborative time in professional learning

communities for collective use of data

in schools. To ensure productive assess-

ment environments in their schools,

principals can draw on tools and strate-

gies such as conducting a school-level

self-analysis to determine the extent to

which the above conditions are satisfied

in their learning environments.

Support and Monitoring In addition to establishing conditions

for effective assessment, princi-

pals are responsible for monitoring

whether teachers are enacting assess-

ment-literate teaching practices. State

programs can offer guidance for prin-

cipals seeking to support teachers’

Principals need to familiarize themselves with the ways in which teachers learn about quality instruction so they can help teachers see the connection between assessment processes and quality teaching practice.

TWITTER TALK

Want to talk about assessment literacy?

Tweet Cara Jackson @caragerber.

Principal Leadership May 2017 55

assessment literacy. For example,

Michigan and Maryland have profes-

sional development initiatives focused

specifically on formative assessment,

both called FAME (Formative Assess-

ment for Michigan/Maryland Educators).

Formative assessment is a critical, and

often informal, activity in which teachers

routinely gather information about

students’ progress and challenges in

meeting learning targets. Then, they

use this feedback to adjust instruction.

Teachers and principals may view

these simply as quality instructional

practices and fail to recognize how

students’ verbal and written responses

are also considered “data” that can be

used to make instructional decisions.

Principals need to familiarize them-

selves with the ways in which teachers

learn about quality instruction so they

can help teachers see the connection

between assessment processes and

quality teaching practice.

Consider Warren Woods Middle

School’s former principal Jennifer

McFarlane. She examined the Danielson

Framework—the rubric that she used

to observe teachers as part of their

evaluation—and the FAME professional

development efforts in her school.

McFarlane showed teachers who were

learning about formative assessment in

their FAME-focused professional learning

communities how formative assessment

practices related to each dimension of

the Danielson Framework.

As it turns out, there was a substantial

overlap in the teaching practices that

she, as a principal, would look for in her

observations and the ideas teachers

were learning about and implementing

as part of the FAME professional devel-

opment. McFarlane’s work demonstrated

to teachers that their professional devel-

opment was directly related to how they

would be evaluated, and also showed her

commitment to supporting her teachers

to excel in their assessment practices.

Because many classroom observation

rubrics capture teaching practices that

reflect teachers’ assessment literacy or

use of assessment for learning (such as

questioning and discussion techniques or

teachers’ use of feedback), observations

provide an opportunity to evaluate and

provide regular and continuous feedback

on teaching practices that require assess-

ment literacy.

Call to Action Educators can most effectively use

assessment for teaching and learning

when the assessments are carefully

designed and when teachers have

sufficient time to review and reflect on

evidence of student learning. Under

ESSA, districts can support principals’

efforts to foster assessment-literate

instructional practices. Specifically, one

of the allowable uses of funds includes

capacity-building in districts to assist

teachers, principals, or other school

leaders with selecting and implementing

formative assessments, designing class-

room-based assessments, and using

data from such assessments to improve

instruction and student academic

achievement. District and school leaders

should take full advantage of the oppor-

tunities under ESSA to provide the

MODEL ASSESSMENT LITERACY

Principals can use observation rubrics to frame their assessment of teaching practices and communicate results to

teachers. Here’s how:

• Provide clear and specific targets to be assessed.

Observation rubrics contain specific targets

for teaching practice; thus, by sharing these

targets with teachers, principals demonstrate

one of the key characteristics of assessment-

literate educators.

• Use observations and assessment of teaching

practice to help develop teachers’ skills and

competencies by clearly communicating results

to teachers.

• Present feedback in ways that foster

teachers’ motivation to keep striving for success.

For example, beyond providing teachers with just

a score, principals should find time to provide

substantive and actionable feedback to help

teachers move their practice forward.

Makin

g it W

ork

56 Principal Leadership May 2017

appropriate organizational context and

support teachers’ use of assessment for

learning. By developing sound assess-

ment processes and skills, principals can

capitalize on opportunities under ESSA

to enhance student learning.

Cara Jackson is an evaluation support

specialist in the Office of Shared

Accountability of Montgomery County Public

Schools in Maryland. Amelia Wenk Gotwals

is an associate professor in the Department

of Teacher Education at Michigan State

University in East Lansing, MI. Beth

Tarasawa is the manager for Education

Research Partnerships at Northwest

Evaluation Association in Portland, OR.

TO LEARN MORE Assessment Literacy Taskforce “The Definition of Assessment Literacy” http://tinyurl.com/assessliteracy

Balanced Assessment Systems: Leadership, Quality and the Role of Classroom Assessment by Steve Chappuis, Carol Commodore, and Rick Stiggins http://tinyurl.com/corwinbalanced

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