Performance standards define a student’s academic responsibilities and, by implication, the teaching responsibilities of the school. How do we determine whether students have lived up to their academic responsibilities? We assess their work—is it “good enough” by comparison with the standards.

Assessment is an integral component of the educational process. If properly designed and administered, assessments can provide important information to help guide and inform instruction. In order to perform these functions, there must be a strict alignment among standards, educational strategies and resources, and assessments. That is, what we assess must be what we teach, and both must focus on what we want students to know and be able to do—the performance standards.

Assessment takes place in a variety of formats and situations, but a convenient distinction separates informal, ongoing classroom assessment from formal, standardized assessment. The former consists of the evidence teachers collect in class on a continuous basis to track the progress of their students in mastering the skills and material that are taught. The latter are the tests and on-demand assessments administered to all students in specific grades as part of the city- and state-wide assessment programs. Both types of assessment are essential to effective instruction. Ongoing classroom assessment provides continuous feedback on student progress to students, teachers, and parents; standardized assessment measures the mastery of critical skills and concepts at key developmental milestones. Regardless of their differing perspectives, both classroom and standardized assessment must be fully aligned with the performance standards.

The state is redesigning its standardized assessment program in Science based on performance standards that are aligned with the New York State Standards. Fourth grade students currently take the Elementary Science Program Evaluation Test (ESPET) to assess science programs in Grades K-4. ESPET includes an objective test as well as a test of manipulative skills. The state is designing a new science test at Grade 8 to be implemented for the first time in the spring of 2000. This test is designed to show whether students are meeting the higher academic standards that are being required and whether they are on track to passing the new, more rigorous Regents Science examinations in high school. The new science test at Grade 8 will include multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, and a laboratory project.

Beyond standardized assessment, it is equally important to ensure that the performance standards provide the focus for ongoing classroom assessment. In the absence of standards, teachers are left without a common frame of reference to determine whether the work of their students is good enough. Standards could vary widely from classroom to classroom resulting in wide variation in instruction and achievement. The work samples that form an essential part of the performance standards provide graphic guidance to all teachers in assessing the level and quality of their students’ work.

How the assessments are connected to the performance standards
The performance standards define a domain of expected student performances. Take the Science standard at the elementary school level as an example. This standard begins with a definition of science concepts that describes what we expect students to be able to do at approximately the end of fourth grade. The performance descriptions go on to spell out expectations for what students will accomplish in terms of demonstrating conceptual understanding, explaining observations and making predictions, and by representing concepts in multiple ways. Furthermore, students are expected to put their reading to work and the standards say so; students have to produce work based on their understanding of particular concepts.

We assess the different elements of the domain defined by a standard by using assessment methods appropriate to the expected performances. Although the assessment system that will fully align with the performance standards is currently under development, some of the components are already in place. The assessment methods comprise a variety of on-demand standardized and ongoing classroom assessments.

The standardized assessments are of two types that differ in format, method of scoring, and the information they provide. One type of assessment serves the purpose of telling us how well students are performing in comparison with standards (standards-referenced assessment); the other compares student performance to that of representative samples of other students (norm-referenced assessment). Typically, the former are performance-based assessments that require students to produce work that is rated by teachers or other professionals using a rubric, or scoring criteria, based on the standards. The latter are usually multiple-choice in format and are machine scored.

In the new state assessment system, these two different types of assessment are used to complement one another. Performance-based assessments are combined with multiple-choice tests in ways that measure both the depth and breadth of student achievement. Moreover, beginning in 2000, the state will revise its Elementary Science Program Evaluation Test (ESPET), add a test at Grades 8, and revise the high school Regents examinations in Science.

Classroom assessment
The last part of Science standard a requires that students communicate results to audiences and defend conclusions from peer review. The appropriate assessor for these requirements is the teacher or another adult close to the student who can verify the student’s claims for meeting this requirement. This component of the system for assessing achievement of the Science standard is designed to work like a merit badge in the style of the awards developed by the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and the Boy Scouts of America.

Raising standards for all students has important implications for the quality of curriculum and instruction. Indeed, one of the most important reasons for setting high standards is to challenge the system to perform for the students. Appropriate assessments based on these high standards can give the system feedback on how well it is doing and what it has to do next.