Testing Leaders, Publishers Offer 'Best Practices' Guide

The booklet marks a first-time collaboration for the groups

The test-publishing industry and state assessment leaders have come together for the first time to define a set of best practices for large-scale state testing.

The result of the collaboration, released last week, is a new best-practices guide intended to serve as a road map to improving state assessment procedures. The Council of Chief State School Officers , which represents commissioners of education, and the Association of Test Publishers , a nonprofit trade group, both based in Washington, coordinated its development.

Work on the guide began in 2006, after the onset of large-scale accountability testing, driven by the No Child Left Behind Act, called attention to states’ and test publishers’ needs for guidance in designing and implementing good assessment systems, said Gene Wilhoit,...