ABSTRACT
Accountability-oriented reforms demand immediate and continual gains on criterion referenced achievement tests for all students, without diminishing other educational outcomes. The poster describes a model that builds on the formative assessment research of others, in order to meet this challenge. This model address three issues that expert panels have identified as needing resolution to maximize the potential of formative assessment: (1) different formats and contexts offer different formative potential; (2) the summative functions of assessment often undermine formative goals, and (3), potentially formative information is often unused or used in ways that undermines learning. The guiding principle of our approach is what theorists have called systemic validity, where the act of measuring student outcomes leads to increased performance on those same outcomes.
