Informing State Assessment from the Local Level: A District's Reflections.

Although most states use a single strategy for statewide assessment, one Midwestern state has chosen a model in which local school districts are responsible for developing strategies to measure and report students' progress on state-adopted content strategies. This paper describes the state assessment system and focuses on the perspectives of teachers from one school district participating in the assessment program. The school district created a team in 2000 to develop the criterion-referenced assessments (CRA) for the state content standards in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The 26 teachers who participated represented grades K-12 and averaged 18 years experience. Each responded to a structured interview about CRA development and implementation. Four themes emerged from the data: (1) evaluation process concerns; (2) resources; (3) instructional time challenges; and (4) professional growth. The most apparent concern of the teachers was their suspicion about how the political process would impact the accountability movement. Teachers were also emphatic about their disdain for comparing districts to each other. Many teachers were apprehensive about the future of the accountability movement, and many were concerned about eventual economic impacts of the accountability process. Teachers thought that the opportunities for training in technology had not been adequate and that they had not been trained adequately in how to write assessments. The largest source of frustration was the lack of time to develop, administer, and evaluate their assessments internally. Teachers worried about the loss of instructional time because of the additional testing, and they wondered about opportunities for professional development related to the assessments. (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 Informing state assessment from the local level: A district's reflections PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY