{"id":7292,"date":"2025-03-12T13:29:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T17:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.humrro.org\/corpsite\/?p=7292"},"modified":"2025-03-18T08:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T12:47:13","slug":"evaluating-k-12-assessment-systems-with-reduced-emphasis-on-summative-year-end-assessments-5-lessons-learned-about-interim-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humrro.org\/corpsite\/blog\/evaluating-k-12-assessment-systems-with-reduced-emphasis-on-summative-year-end-assessments-5-lessons-learned-about-interim-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating K-12 Assessment Systems with Reduced Emphasis on Summative Year-End Assessments: 5 Lessons Learned About Interim Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEveryone hates summative end-of-year assessments!\u201d Complaints about them are rampant among educators, legislators, parents, students, and even some measurement professionals. The tests come at the wrong time, just when students are changing teachers, grades, or schools. They don\u2019t provide useful information, only proficiency ratings or nearly meaningless sub-scores that are not diagnostic\/formative for students. They are stressful for educators and students, as summative scores account for the lion\u2019s share of most states\u2019 school accountability determinations.<\/h3>\n

These and other concerns with summative assessments have steadily grown in prominence since the passing of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. And while the current iteration of that law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)<\/a> of 2015, reduced some of the rigidness of federal accountability requirements, it did little to assuage the severity of dissatisfaction with summative tests.<\/p>\n

Summative end-of-year assessments are very good at providing broad system-level information, such as describing overall math gains among eighth-graders in a state. However, states have responded to criticisms of summative tests by creating more comprehensive \u201cassessment systems\u201d\u2014often incorporating regular interim assessments, offering choice among assessment products, providing topical or predictive assessments for educators (typically not used in accountability), and allowing or promoting districts\/schools to develop or adopt assessments of their own. Some states allow for district-level accountability measures to supplement state- or federal-level accountability. Most continue to use end-of-year summative assessments, but their emphasis within the overall system is being reduced.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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