Technology Applications for Learning part of the Education Reform Network

Ensuring Equity with Alternative Assessment

Link: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as800.htm

ISSUE: If American students are to be held responsible for achieving high educational standards, it is ethically imperative that educators develop assessment strategies that ensure equity in assessing and interpreting student performance. In order to protect students from unfair and damaging interpretations and to provide parents and communities with an accurate overall picture of student achievement, educators need to be aware of the promise and the challenges inherent in using alternative assessment practices for high-stakes decisions (such as student retention, promotion, graduation, and assignment to particular instructional groups), which have profound consequences for the students affected. Only then will educators be able to build and use an assessment system that is a vehicle for eliminating, as opposed to underscoring, educational inequities. Although alternative assessments can help ensure ethnic, racial, economic, and gender fairness, equity cannot be achieved by reforms to assessment alone. Change will result only from a trio of reform initiatives aimed at ongoing professional development in curriculum and instruction, improved pedagogy, and quality assessment

This resource is cataloged under:

• Educational Type: Primary source
• Educational Type: Reference
• Educational Type: Research study
• Network/channel: Technology Applications for Learning: develop or conduct assessment of learning
• Network/channel: Technology Applications for Learning: develop or conduct evaluation or accountability effort

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