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Educators need to become more assessment literate. When they do, they will be able to use assessments better to guide their teaching and communicate their expectations and results with students and the broader education stakeholders and audiences.

Instructional decisions based on quality assessments and a balanced assessment system most effectively promote student learning. To inform sound decisions, assessments need to satisfy five key standards of quality: (1) clear purpose; (2) clear learning targets; (3) sound assessment design; (4) effective communication of results; and (5) student involvement in the assessment process. Assessment-literate educators must also consider balance; they need to understand what assessments are appropriate, both formatively and summatively, at three different levels of assessment: the classroom level, the periodic interim/benchmark level, and the annual standardized testing level. By building balanced systems with assessment literate users, we are far more likely to attend to issues of quality and serve the best interests of students. (Contains 2 figures and 1 endnote.)

Principals can play a pivotal role in the improvement of student learning by helping teachers develop and use sound classroom assessments that will strengthen instruction and student learning. The typical teacher will spend a quarter to a third of her or his available professional time involved in assessment-related activities. If they do it well, both teachers and students gain access to evidence that can be used in making sound instructional decisions; if they do it poorly, learning will suffer. In spite of this, little of principals' preparation time is spent learning about assessments. (Contains 7 endnotes.)

Traditional assessments--which detect and highlight differences in student learning and rank students according to their achievement--inevitably produce winners and losers. Because today's schools cannot afford to leave any child behind, educators need to embrace a new vision of assessment--one that enables all students to become winners. The author describes how assessment for learning turns day-to-day assessment into a teaching and learning process that enhances (instead of merely monitoring) student learning. Teachers share achievement targets with students and work with them in partnership to use the results of frequent assessments to move toward those targets. Rather than a one-time event stuck on at the end of an instructional unit, assessment becomes a series of interlaced experiences that keep students posted on their progress, even in the face of occasional setbacks.

Formative assessment refers to a system of more frequent summative assessments administered at regular intervals (often quarterly) to determine which students have not yet met state standards--an early warning system. On the one hand, it helps to identify students who need help when there is still time to help them. On the other hand, while this very expensive assessment process helps identify the problem, it does not help those students find greater success. For that, the definition must be expanded. Enter "assessment for learning." Assessment "for" learning happens in the classroom and involves students in every aspect of their own assessment to build their confidence and maximize their achievement. It rests on the understanding that students, not just adults, are data-driven instructional decision makers. This article details five keys to classroom assessment quality, with each broken down into specific competencies teachers need to master to tap the full potential of assessment "for" learning. (Contains 9 resources.)

Ever since Scriven (1967) and Bloom, Hastings, and Madaus (1971) articulated the distinction between summative and formative evaluation, "summative assessment" has referred to tests administered after learning is supposed to have occurred to determine whether it did. "Formative assessment", on the other hand, has been used to describe assessments conducted during learning--those that inform teachers' instructional decisions along the way to student success. Interest and investment in summative assessment has far outstripped formative assessment as layer upon layer of these tests have been used for classroom grading as well as local, state, national, and international testing for public accountability. Within the last few years, however, formative assessment has emerged as an increasingly prominent school improvement strategy. One reason for its increased use has been educators' realization that once-a-year standardized summative tests are not likely to affect specific day-to-day, week-to-week, or even month-to-month instructional decisions. Summative tests typically fail to provide a picture of student learning with sufficient detail to tell teachers how to help individual students. Formative assessment informs instructional decision making by providing information about how and what students are learning. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning by engaging in self-assessment, reflection, goal setting, and monitoring and communicating their own progress. To use formative assessment effectively, teachers must take part in a cyclical process that includes assessment, diagnosis, feedback, goal setting, and instruction, and that involves students every step of the way.

Stiggins says that, to build better assessment systems, educators and education leaders need more opportunities to learn the basic principles of sound assessment practice. He lays out what he views as the fundamental elements of assessment literacy.

In recent years, educators have expanded their thinking about what the assessment process can do; they have moved beyond using it simply to judge and grade achievement to using it to make changes in teaching that will lead to greater learning. They have come to refer to this as formative assessment. When used formatively, assessments help students grow rather than merely holding them accountable for their learning. However, in formative assessment as traditionally conceived, it is the teacher whose information needs are met. When formative assessment is cast as a tool for students to use, educators call it "assessment for learning." Both formative assessment and assessment for learning are intended to provide information early enough in the decision-making process to influence student learning. In this article, the authors identify the differences between formative assessment and assessment for learning, and describe how formative assessments can enhance student learning and create profound achievement gains.

A learning-team model that can be used by teachers to learn between team meetings is suggested. Teachers should create a cultural shift in the school by stressing the importance of 'teachers as learners.' Teachers should then create an understanding of the process by emphasizing that the aim of learning teams is strengthen student learning.