Viewpoints
Assessment-Driven Reform:
A Leadership Approach
By Rhetta L. Detrich
with Ed Janus and Sabrina W.M. Laine
Introduction
It has been nearly 20 years since A Nation at Risk shined the spotlight on the "rising tide of mediocrity" in American education. This report, released in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, served as a call to arms for education, political, and community leaders. Educators were accused of permitting a mediocre standard of education "that threatens our very future as a nation and a people" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 5). With the publication of this report, establishing educational standards of achievement for all students quickly became an issue of national policy.
After standards were developed in most states, attention was given to developing systems for determining progress in the quest to meet those standards. The primary device for measuring such progress—or lack thereof—has been student testing. Today, nearly every state in the nation has developed or uses a form of state assessment to determine students' educational progress.
The profound growth of the testing industry is a clear indication that testing is a permanently established fixture in American education. Using data from The Bowker Annual, a compendium of annual test sales, the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College reported a jump in test sales from $7 million in 1995 to $263 million in 1997; the estimated value of today's testing market ranges from $400 million to $700 million (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2002b).
The increasing role of testing in U.S. schools is a reflection of the growing federal emphasis on shaping an education agenda that centers around standards and accountability. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the accountability-based reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
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