As Covid-19 makes us reconsider the best ways to teach students, we must also consider how assessment and accountability need to shift toward a more modern structure. As part of NWEA’s Testing America’s Freedom podcast series, FutureEd Director Thomas Toch spoke about end-of-the-year summative tests with Dr. Aaliyah Samuel and Jason Mendenhall of NWEA.
“Summative tests aren’t designed to help teachers teach,” Toch said. “They’re designed to help policymakers understand broader trends, to give us a sense of the return on our massive $700 billion investment annually in public education, to spur improvement at the school and school district levels. A big weakness from teachers’ perspectives is that they do not provide immediate feedback, but they’re not designed to do that.”