Districts Building Teacher Capacity in Classroom Assessment: Lessons Learned about the District Role in Building Teachers' Capacity To Assess Students More Effectively through an Interconnected System of Programs and Policies.

This paper describes lessons learned about the district role in building teachers capacity to assess students more effectively. It also presents a framework based on experiences with school districts that demonstrates how districts leverage an interconnected system of strategies to have an impact on the quality of instruction and assessment in the classroom. Lessons are derived from research conducted at SERVE, the federally funded research and development laboratory serving the southeastern states. The major sources were a training initiative, including teacher surveys, and interviews with key informants from 15 school districts. The interconnected system of strategies derived from these sources includes those that: (1) build teacher capacity (professional development, teacher evaluation, and instructional leadership); (2) set the conditions in the district for continuous improvement (defining strategies and strategic planning); (3) support effective school improvement processes (informal school reviews and allocation of funds); and (4) monitor progress (use of assessments, use of data on classroom environments, and defining grade-level proficiency). Three appendixes contain attachments that provide supplemental information, the interview protocol and a table of districts interviewed, and the baseline classroom assessment questionnaire. (Contains 23 references.) (SLD)