High-quality education can emerge with or without tests. In fact, none of the highest achieving states in this country between 1990 and 1996 had a high-stakes testing system in place. When you analyze their success, it was because they had the most highly qualified teachers. Most important is to recruit and prepare teachers who know both their subject matter and teaching methods well and to support continual teacher im-provement. When you use assessment to generate and communicate information that teachers, students and parents can use, in-formed decisions and an emphasis on improvement emerge.
Technology has three fundamental roles.
The ETS work has yet to land in many schools, but the concept is taking hold. Imagine students using technology to demonstrate knowledge by solving simulated real-world problems like doctors do on medical licensing exams. Technology-enhanced assessment can allow students to simultaneously demonstrate subject knowledge and skills. Finally, assessment data be-comes truly useful when aggregated for individual students over time and when analyzed in various combinations. Average scores for changing groups of children compared annually do not provide much useful information.