Portfolios
Assessment
Video
K-12 Performance Assessment Terms Explained
Interest is growing in assessing students’ learning by having them show what they can do with what they know. But educators often disagree about what terms like performance assessment and project-based learning really mean in the classroom. In an effort to clear up some of the confusion, Education Week writers developed definitions for six performance-assessment related terms, including proficiency-based learning, project-based learning, standards-based grading, and portfolios. See the results in this animated glossary.
Curriculum
Classroom Portfolios Used as Alternative Teacher-Evaluation Measure
Tennessee is allowing arts teachers to submit their students' work as one yardstick of how well they contribute to the children's achievement.
Federal
Campaign Notebook
Remark on Testing Opens a Portfolio of Questions
A spokeswoman for Sen. Barack Obama sparked a mini-debate over testing last week when she suggested on a national radio show that the Democratic presidential nominee endorses the use of student portfolios.
Assessment
Digital Portfolios: An Alternative Approach To Assessing Progress
Student mastery is being tracked on something other than tests.
Federal
Reacting to Reviews, States Cut Portfolio Assessments for ELL Students
Arkansas and Wisconsin have dropped portfolio assessments for English-language learners after receiving letters from the U.S. Department of Education saying the states had to prove those tests were valid or their large-scale assessment systems would be rejected under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Assessment
N.Y. ‘Portfolio Schools’ Get Regents Reprieve
Thirty-nine New York state high schools have won a reprieve from a state requirement that students pass the Regents exams to earn a diploma.
School & District Management
Rural Schools Trying Out Portfolio Assessment
A group of rural educators says it wanted a new tool to help gain something many schools lack: the ability to examine their work more critically and professionally.
Assessment
Commentary
Assessment Reform at Crossroads
Across the nation, the movement for new forms of student assessment
appears to have slowed and in some cases even reversed. Gov. Pete
Wilson of California, for example, vetoed the reauthorization of the
California Learning Assessment System, which included not only a
substantially open-ended state exam, but also funded a wide array of
local assessment-development projects.