he Scope of a Teacher's Professional Role and Responsibilities for Student

Assessment 

There are seven standards in this document. In recognizing the critical need to revitalize
classroom assessment, some standards focus on classroom-based competencies.
Because of teachers' growing roles in education and policy decisions beyond the
classroom, other standards address assessment competencies underlying teacher
participation in decisions related to assessment at the school, district, state, and
national levels. 

The scope of a teacher's professional role and responsibilities for student assessment
may be described in terms of the following activities. These activities imply that teachers
need competence in student assessment and sufficient time and resources to complete
them in a professional manner. 

 Activities Occurring Prior to Instruction

o (a) Understanding students' cultural backgrounds, interests, skills, and
abilities as they apply across a range of learning domains and/or subject
areas;
o (b) understanding students' motivations and their interests in specific class
content;
o (c) clarifying and articulating the performance outcomes expected of
pupils; and
o (d) planning instruction for individuals or groups of students.
 Activities Occurring During Instruction
o (a) Monitoring pupil progress toward instructional goals;
o (b) identifying gains and difficulties pupils are experiencing in learning and
performing;
o (c) adjusting instruction;
o (d) giving contingent, specific, and credible praise and feedback;
o (e) motivating students to learn; and
o (f) judging the extent of pupil attainment of instructional outcomes.
 Activities Occurring After The Appropriate Instructional Segment (e.g. lesson,
class, semester, grade)
o (a) Describing the extent to which each pupil has attained both short- and
long-term instructional goals;
o (b) communicating strengths and weaknesses based on assessment
results to students, and parents or guardians;
o (c) recording and reporting assessment results for school-level analysis,
evaluation, and decision-making;
o (d) analyzing assessment information gathered before and during
instruction to understand each students' progress to date and to inform
future instructional planning;
 o (e) evaluating the effectiveness of instruction; and
o (f) evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum and materials in use.
 Activities Associated With a Teacher's Involvement in School Building and
School District Decision-Making
o (a) Serving on a school or district committee examining the school's and
district's strengths and weaknesses in the development of its students;
o (b) working on the development or selection of assessment methods for
school building or school district use;
o (c) evaluating school district curriculum; and
o (d) other related activities.
 Activities Associated With a Teacher's Involvement in a Wider Community of
Educators
o (a) Serving on a state committee asked to develop learning goals and
associated assessment methods;
o (b) participating in reviews of the appropriateness of district, state, or
national student goals and associated assessment methods; and
o (c) interpreting the results of state and national student assessment
programs.

Each standard that follows is an expectation for assessment knowledge or skill that a
teacher should possess in order to perform well in the five areas just described. As a
set, the standards call on teachers to demonstrate skill at selecting, developing,
applying, using, communicating, and evaluating student assessment information and
student assessment practices. A brief rationale and illustrative behaviors follow each
standard. 

The standards represent a conceptual framework or scaffolding from which specific

skills can be derived. Work to make these standards operational will be needed even
after they have been published. It is also expected that experience in the application of
these standards should lead to their improvement and further development. 

Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students

1. Teachers should be skilled in choosing assessment methods appropriate for

instructional decisions. 

Skills in choosing appropriate, useful, administratively convenient, technically adequate,

and fair assessment methods are prerequisite to good use of information to support
instructional decisions. Teachers need to be well-acquainted with the kinds of
information provided by a broad range of assessment alternatives and their strengths
and weaknesses. In particular, they should be familiar with criteria for evaluating and
selecting assessment methods in light of instructional plans. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. They will be able to use the concepts of assessment error and validity when
developing or selecting their approaches to classroom assessment of students. They
will understand how valid assessment data can support instructional activities such as
providing appropriate feedback to students, diagnosing group and individual learning
needs, planning for individualized educational programs, motivating students, and
evaluating instructional procedures. They will understand how invalid information can
affect instructional decisions about students. They will also be able to use and evaluate
assessment options available to them, considering among other things, the cultural,
social, economic, and language backgrounds of students. They will be aware that
different assessment approaches can be incompatible with certain instructional goals
and may impact quite differently on their teaching. 

Teachers will know, for each assessment approach they use, its appropriateness for
making decisions about their pupils. Moreover, teachers will know of where to find
information about and/or reviews of various assessment methods. Assessment options
are diverse and include text- and curriculum-embedded questions and tests,
standardized criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests, oral questioning,
spontaneous and structured performance assessments, portfolios, exhibitions,
demonstrations, rating scales, writing samples, paper-and-pencil tests, seatwork and
homework, peer- and self-assessments, student records, observations, questionnaires,
interviews, projects, products, and others' opinions. 

2. Teachers should be skilled in developing assessment methods appropriate for

instructional decisions. 

While teachers often use published or other external assessment tools, the bulk of the
assessment information they use for decision-making comes from approaches they
create and implement. Indeed, the assessment demands of the classroom go well
beyond readily available instruments. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. Teachers will be skilled in planning the collection of information that facilitates
the decisions they will make. They will know and follow appropriate principles for
developing and using assessment methods in their teaching, avoiding common pitfalls
in student assessment. Such techniques may include several of the options listed at the
end of the first standard. The teacher will select the techniques which are appropriate to
the intent of the teacher's instruction. 

Teachers meeting this standard will also be skilled in using student data to analyze the
quality of each assessment technique they use. Since most teachers do not have
access to assessment specialists, they must be prepared to do these analyses
themselves. 

3. The teacher should be skilled in administering, scoring and interpreting the

results of both externally-produced and teacher-produced assessment methods. 

It is not enough that teachers are able to select and develop good assessment
methods; they must also be able to apply them properly. Teachers should be skilled in
administering, scoring, and interpreting results from diverse assessment methods. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. They will be skilled in interpreting informal and formal teacher-produced
assessment results, including pupils' performances in class and on homework
assignments. Teachers will be able to use guides for scoring essay questions and
projects, stencils for scoring response-choice questions, and scales for rating
performance assessments. They will be able to use these in ways that produce
consistent results. 

Teachers will be able to administer standardized achievement tests and be able to

interpret the commonly reported scores: percentile ranks, percentile band scores,
standard scores, and grade equivalents. They will have a conceptual understanding of
the summary indexes commonly reported with assessment results: measures of central
tendency, dispersion, relationships, reliability, and errors of measurement. 

Teachers will be able to apply these concepts of score and summary indices in ways
that enhance their use of the assessments that they develop. They will be able to
analyze assessment results to identify pupils' strengths and errors. If they get
inconsistent results, they will seek other explanations for the discrepancy or other data
to attempt to resolve the uncertainty before arriving at a decision. They will be able to
use assessment methods in ways that encourage students' educational development
and that do not inappropriately increase students' anxiety levels. 

4. Teachers should be skilled in using assessment results when making

decisions about individual students, planning teaching, developing curriculum,
and school improvement. 

Assessment results are used to make educational decisions at several levels: in the
classroom about students, in the community about a school and a school district, and in
society, generally, about the purposes and outcomes of the educational enterprise.
Teachers play a vital role when participating in decision-making at each of these levels
and must be able to use assessment results effectively. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. They will be able to use accumulated assessment information to organize a
sound instructional plan for facilitating students' educational development. When using
assessment results to plan and/or evaluate instruction and curriculum, teachers will
interpret the results correctly and avoid common misinterpretations, such as basing
decisions on scores that lack curriculum validity. They will be informed about the results
of local, regional, state, and national assessments and about their appropriate use for
pupil, classroom, school, district, state, and national educational improvement. 

5. Teachers should be skilled in developing valid pupil grading procedures which

use pupil assessments. 

Grading students is an important part of professional practice for teachers. Grading is

defined as indicating both a student's level of performance and a teacher's valuing of
that performance. The principles for using assessments to obtain valid grades are
known and teachers should employ them. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. They will be able to devise, implement, and explain a procedure for developing
grades composed of marks from various assignments, projects, inclass activities,
quizzes, tests, and/or other assessments that they may use. Teachers will understand
and be able to articulate why the grades they assign are rational, justified, and fair,
acknowledging that such grades reflect their preferences and judgments. Teachers will
be able to recognize and to avoid faulty grading procedures such as using grades as
punishment. They will be able to evaluate and to modify their grading procedures in
order to improve the validity of the interpretations made from them about students'
attainments. 

6. Teachers should be skilled in communicating assessment results to students,

parents, other lay audiences, and other educators. 

Teachers must routinely report assessment results to students and to parents or

guardians. In addition, they are frequently asked to report or to discuss assessment
results with other educators and with diverse lay audiences. If the results are not
communicated effectively, they may be misused or not used. To communicate
effectively with others on matters of student assessment, teachers must be able to use
assessment terminology appropriately and must be able to articulate the meaning,
limitations, and implications of assessment results. Furthermore, teachers will
sometimes be in a position that will require them to defend their own assessment
procedures and their interpretations of them. At other times, teachers may need to help
the public to interpret assessment results appropriately. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. Teachers will understand and be able to give appropriate explanations of how
the interpretation of student assessments must be moderated by the student's socio-
economic, cultural, language, and other background factors. Teachers will be able to
explain that assessment results do not imply that such background factors limit a
student's ultimate educational development. They will be able to communicate to
students and to their parents or guardians how they may assess the student's
educational progress. Teachers will understand and be able to explain the importance
of taking measurement errors into account when using assessments to make decisions
about individual students. Teachers will be able to explain the limitations of different
informal and formal assessment methods. They will be able to explain printed reports of
the results of pupil assessments at the classroom, school district, state, and national
levels. 

7. Teachers should be skilled in recognizing unethical, illegal, and otherwise

inappropriate assessment methods and uses of assessment information. 

Fairness, the rights of all concerned, and professional ethical behavior must undergird
all student assessment activities, from the initial planning for and gathering of
information to the interpretation, use, and communication of the results. Teachers must
be well-versed in their own ethical and legal responsibilities in assessment. In addition,
they should also attempt to have the inappropriate assessment practices of others
discontinued whenever they are encountered. Teachers should also participate with the
wider educational community in defining the limits of appropriate professional behavior
in assessment. 

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that
follow. They will know those laws and case decisions which affect their classroom,
school district, and state assessment practices. Teachers will be aware that various
assessment procedures can be misused or overused resulting in harmful consequences
such as embarrassing students, violating a student's right to confidentiality, and
inappropriately using students' standardized achievement test scores to measure
teaching effectiveness.