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"TESTS have a bad reputation in education circles these days: They take time, the critics say, put students under pressure and, in the case of standardized testing, crowd out other educational priorities. But the truth is that, used properly, testing as part of an educational routine provides an important tool not just to measure learning, but to promote it."

"Effective Classroom Assessment: Linking Assessment with Instruction Successful middle schools engage students in all aspects of their learning. There are many strategies for accomplishing this. One such strategy is student-led conferences. As a classroom teacher or administrator, how do you ensure that the information shared in a student-led conference provides a balanced picture of the student's strengths and weaknesses? The answer to this is to balance both summative and formative classroom assessment practices and information gathering about student learning. Assessment is a huge topic that encompasses everything from statewide accountability tests to district benchmark or interim tests to everyday classroom tests. 4 In order to grapple with what seems to be an over use of testing, educators should frame their view of testing as assessment and that assessment is information. The more information we have about students, the clearer the picture we have about achievement or where gaps may occur."

"This article from The American Prospect is worth a look. It all started when standardized testing took the spotlight in Governor Bush's Texas Miracle. Fast forward to today-after a series of new tests was recently introduced in the state, teachers and parents both are finally calling in Texas for standardized testing to ease up. ""

"That's why I wrote Teach Above the Test. This book is all about how we as teachers, administrators, parents, as school leaders, as people who see our students for 180 days a year…how we can go beyond the standards, and above the tests. Our focus needs to change. We can't hate these assessments. And we also can't love these assessments. We need to start treating these tests for what they really are…which is just one assessment out of many that our students will have to take in life. "

"The district's key strategy for improving student outcomes is the use of "professional learning communities." A PLC is  basically a team of teachers assigned to a given grade level. As Putnam explains it, they test all the kids on a certain subject. Based on the results, they group the kids by educational need. Then they work on the students' skills and test them again."

Yet studies of principal behavior in schools makes clear that spending time in classrooms to observe, monitor, and evaluate classroom lessons do not necessarily lead to better teaching or higher student achievement on standardized tests. Where there is a correlation between principals' influence on teachers and student performance, it occurs when principals create and sustain an academic ethos in the school, organize instruction across the school, and align school lessons to district standards and standardized test items. There is hardly any positive association between principals walking in and out of classrooms a half-dozen times a day and conferring briefly with teaches about those five-minute visits.The reality of daily principal actions conflicts with the theory.

The U.S. Department of Education would have us believe-yet again-that we are in an unprecedented crisis and that we must double down on the test-and-punish strategies of the past dozen years. The myth persists that once our nation led the world on international tests, but we have fallen from that exalted position in recent years. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Recently, ACT disaggregated its 2014 test results and college retention rates in order to get a closer look at the college aspirations and preparation levels of ACT-takers who reported a family income of less than $36,000 (the poorest 24 percent of test-takers). An astonishing 96 percent of these students reported plans to enroll in college. Despite their aspirations, however, only 11 percent met all four of ACT's college readiness benchmarks, which include English, reading, math, and science. Even more troubling, a whopping 50 percent of low-income students failed to meet a single benchmark."

"The best kind of teacher evaluation The Los Angeles Times on Sunday published a massive story that rocked the education world by using student test scores to evaluate more than 6,000 teachers and then to declare which teachers are effective and who should be shown the door. Any regular reader of my blog will know that I take a dim view of any teacher evaluation scheme that uses test scores as a sole measure. Here is a piece on real teacher evaluation by Larry Ferlazzo, who teaches English at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. Ferlazzo writes a popular blog for teachers and is the author of two books, Building Parent Engagement In Schools and English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work. He is also a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, a network of teacher leaders dedicated to student success and the transformation of teaching into a true profession. It is a national initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality."

Video from PBS - "In 1998, when Massachusetts first implemented new standardized testing that was required for graduation, administrators at Brockton High School learned that more than 75 percent of their 4,000 students would fail to graduate. But over the last decade a small group of dedicated teachers have changed the way every class is taught. They began a schoolwide literacy program to reinforce literacy skills in every class, including math, science and even gym. The transformation at Brockton has been remarkable: Failure rates for that state test have dropped to 6 percent for English, and the school was featured in a 2009 report on exceptional public high schools by the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University."

"MATH 42 helps students from the 5th to the 12th grade with math - starting with homework to the preparation for tests - by (1) presenting intelligent recommendations, showing how to solve a problem, by (2) giving detailed, illustrated step by step solutions, and (3) a Training and Test Mode that allows you - thanks to statistics - to evaluate your progress and improve yourself. Problems and Solutions can be posted on Facebook or sent per eMail. "

"Creighton School District is a small urban community in Arizona with approximately 7,200 students, of whom 85% are Hispanic and 90% qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Children in the district are tested informally on a weekly basis and then formally every quarter with a district-developed standards-based assessment in the areas of reading and math. To help families better understand the results of these tests, educators in the Creighton School District have reorganized the structure of parent-teacher conferences to accommodate the shift to a more focused discussion around data."

SST 9 LiveBinder for resources supporting accessibility for Ohio's State Tests

"What he found was a pattern of districts taking a big hit in grades when they had students take tests online, while also having great success when students took them with paper and pencil."

"It's a dramatic departure for the state from a culture of having virtually all teachers receiving a good rating almost by default and with little commentary. By next school year, each teacher will be rated based on students' academic growth, usually measured on standardized tests, and on how teachers do in the classroom observations"

Find the Best Educational Apps for Preschoolers "Educational App Store For Parents." KinderTown transforms mobile devices into powerful teaching tools by finding and organizing the best educational apps for kids ages 3-8 years old. Our mission is to improve early childhood education by empowering busy parents with the tools to be better teachers. We work hard to find the best educational apps for children. Each app we select for KinderTown has been tested and reviewed by educators, parents, and most importantly, children. Not all, or even most of the apps meet our high standards. We take many factors into account including educational value, ease of use, engagement value, design features, artwork, cost, and shelf life.

"At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores and performance, leaving little time and energy for our kids to become resilient, successful, meaningful contributors for the 21st century. Every day, we provide families and schools with the practical, research-based tools they need to raise healthy, motivated kids. Success, after all, is measured not at the end of the semester, but over the course of a lifetime."

"Haiku Deck is a great iPad app for building academic vocabulary - and its free. It provides a student-friendly tool for teaching common core vocabulary standards with motivation and creativity. Good defining skills are rooted in collaborative negotiation of meaning rather than memorizing glossaries and testing via two-column matching questions. "

"This infographic illustrates what everyone needs to know about the Common Core State Standards. Special sections for teachers and students include great tips on how to prepare for the coming rigor and complex test items on the Common Core assessments."

Computer based testing items examples