Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress released two new pieces outlining comprehensive strategies to improve and streamline testing during the COVID-19 pandemic while also ensuring that schools, educators, and families have critical information about what students need and how they are progressing.
The first issue brief lays out the case for continuing assessments amid the pandemic and outlines what states can and should be doing to support good assessment practices at the local level. It comes on the heels of a letter Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos sent to state school chiefs last week advising that, despite the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Education will continue to enforce testing requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The second column looks at how advanced coursework testing systems for Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses faltered last spring as students transitioned to at-home learning environments, as well as what needs to be done to build more flexible, resilient, and equitable advanced coursework assessments for this school year and beyond. Given that students can earn college credit for good performance on tests, the stakes for student success in advanced coursework were high even prior to the pandemic; but now, as revenue shortfalls will likely lead to budget cuts that drive up tuition, they will only increase.
Please click here to read “Student Assessment During COVID-19” by Laura Jimenez.
Please click here to read “How To Center Equity in Advanced Coursework Testing During COVID-19” by Roby Chatterji.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected] or 202-741-6292.