eLEAD Madison County

Most school systems have compliance-driven testing systems, meaning that assessment is largely driven by what’s required by the federal and state departments of education. Compliance-driven systems tend to be driven by the politics of the day, they change whenever the state requirements change, they produce inconsistent data, and are often bloated because assessments that are tacked on to these systems piecemeal. Most assessments are not regularly reviewed or redundant assessments are not eliminated.
Compliance-driven systems tend to emphasize punishment over improvement, largely because federal policy makers have prioritized the use of student test scores as vehicles for holding schools and teachers accountable. As such, opportunities to use assessment to drive instruction in schools and nurture the professional development of teachers can be lost.
Purpose-driven assessment programs are designed for the long-term. They do meet the compliance requirements of their state, but they define their own local goals for assessment, they emphasize using assessment for improvement rather than punishment, they eliminate duplicative or useless tests, and they provide data that is useful for the district and the classroom.