This document proposes a new approach to accountability assessments that reduces the federal role and increases the state and local roles. It involves using curriculum-embedded performance assessments (CEPAs) administered throughout the year as the primary method of assessment, supplemented by shorter statewide assessments that are more performance-based. CEPAs would be developed and approved by states and incorporated into regular classroom instruction. They would provide timely feedback to improve learning and inform accountability. This approach aims to transform teaching and learning to focus on deeper learning skills, while increasing efficiency by reducing over-testing. It would realign accountability to give states and districts more ownership over the process.

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An Option for Right-sizing and Re-balancing Assessments and Realigning Accountability
to Help all Students Succeed
January 2015
Overview
As another attempt to reauthorize ESEA approaches
and amid complaints about NCLB’s ill effects and
over-testing, proposals to reduce or even eliminate
federal accountability assessment requirements are
garnering support, possibly returning us to the pre-
NCLB era. Many people remember the shortcomings
of that time, which prompted NCLB’s passage and
the annual testing and sub-group reporting
provisions intended to ensure no student would fall
through the cracks. It didn’t totally succeed.
This time we can address calls for finally achieving
educational equity (including continued annual
reporting of student and subgroup status and
growth as a key indicator); a reduced Federal role; a
rebalancing of how we use assessment to place
greater emphasis on student learning in general, and
deeper learning in particular; a broader
accountability framework that supports educating
the “whole child” and personalizing education; and
increased efficiency and effectiveness – such as
eliminating unnecessary multiple-choice-dominated,
standardized testing. By recognizing how
accountability assessment affects instruction, the
option connects the two, in the process
transforming learning/teaching, and realigning
accountability ownership and focus. Besides
changing practice, it requires policy flexibility in the
nature and use of local components in state
accountability assessment systems.
As depicted above, this option involves a more
comprehensive and balanced state accountability
assessment system with a significant, curriculum-
embedded, local component. The key features:
 A reduced Federal role in accountability and
related assessments: the US Department of
Education (US ED) will focus on equity, student
status and growth, and program/ accountability
assessment quality, while supporting research,
dissemination, program evaluation, and
technical assistance. State and local education
agency roles in accountability assessment will
increase, reflecting the principle that each
governance level in public education only needs
what data are appropriate for fulfilling its role:
the most data are needed in the classroom, with
lesser amounts as one climbs the governance
ladder.
 A dual role for state education agencies:
o Overseeing the implementation of high-
quality (valid, reliable, and comparable),
accessible, curriculum-embedded
performance assessments (CEPAs) through
capacity building; reviewing, vetting,
selecting, and field-testing CEPAs to use for
accountability purposes; auditing scoring;
and analyzing results. CEPAs could at some
point become the primary, and perhaps
sole, component of accountability testing.
o Overseeing high-quality, accessible, annual,
on-demand statewide assessments that
Local, state,
federal
accountability
Federal focus: equity,
quality, growth, research,
evaluation, dissemination,
and technical assistance
On-demand state
tests with
performance
component
(shorter and
possibly fewer
over time)
Regular (multiple times per
year) reporting at all levels of
student and sub-group results,
including scores and feedback
Annual results from
multiple curriculum-
embedded performance
assessments (CEPAs) for
each student in multiple
subjects with state
vetting, selection, field-
testing of tasks;auditing
of scoring; and results
analysis

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contain a significant performance-based
component. As the use of CEPAs increases,
the scope of the on-demand assessments
can be scaled back, for example by using
matrix-sampled items. Eventually, states
could reduce the number of grades/courses
at/for which the on-demand assessments
are administered, even eliminating them, so
long as CEPAs meet technical standards.
 Annual results from multiple CEPAs for each
student and sub-group in a minimum of
selected subjects (states could add more) will
contribute to and could eventually represent the
dominant, and perhaps sole, testing input to
state accountability assessment systems.
 Student and sub-group reports will be
generated for each round of CEPAs as well as
any statewide on-demand tests. Student CEPA
work products, along with scores and
annotations/feedback, will inform local
accountability, subsequent instruction during
the year, and possibly grades.
Failure to achieve equitable and improving outcomes
for all students or to use technically valid and
reliable assessments will have consequences, but
with more emphasis on supporting improvements.
Discussion and Implications
Transforming the learning process: The desire for
high school graduates to be ready for college,
careers, and life, and the increased emphasis on
deeper learning represent a significant opportunity
– and challenge – for all students and educators,
but particularly for those striving to ensure
educational equity. Success requires richer, more
performance-based learning and assessment
activities than is typical today. The learning and
associated benefits of the formative assessment
practices (closing achievement gaps while helping all
students grow) and performance assessment
(increased engagement and deeper learning for all
students) have been established through a large and
growing body of research and other evidence. They
change the roles of students and teachers and how
they spend their time in ways that are essential for
improving outcomes.
Placing curriculum-embedded performance
assessments (CEPAs) at the heart of the learning/
teaching process offers game-changing potential to
transform education and increase learning for all
students, while making assessment and instruction
far more efficient and effective. CEPAs are
instructional units that include learning and
evidence-gathering activities with formative and
summative purposes and elements, including
formative assessment practices and valid and reliable
evaluations of student work products, presentations,
and other demonstrations of student learning and
capabilities. While CEPAs require students to have
basic knowledge and skills (although traditional tests
will also be used to assess these), they are ideal for
helping all students develop the high-order cognitive
and non-cognitive skills embedded in deeper
learning and needed for college, career, and life. It
only makes sense for CEPA results to be used for
accountability – for the subjects and grades
currently assessed and ideally more.
As has been highlighted recently, most standardized
testing occurs at the district level, largely driven by
the nature and stakes of accountability testing. The
use of CEPAs should greatly reduce the need for
such tests. Placing greater reliance on the formative
assessment process and performance assessment,
schools and districts will have a wealth of direct,
accurate, insightful, and timely evidence of student
learning to inform curriculum and instruction in
their efforts to help all students succeed. This step
will also increase educational efficiency and
effectiveness in other ways, by –
 improving outcomes for all students while
narrowing achievement gaps;
 building educator capacity for deeper learning;
 using performance tasks for accountability that
are aligned with curricula and scope/sequence
so they reinforce and don’t disrupt learning;
 strengthening the link between classroom and
accountability expectations and assessment;
 eliminating unnecessary and/or ineffective
interim/benchmark, and summative tests;
 providing meaningful demonstrations of
learning for pursuing college or a career; and
Curriculum-
Embedded
Performance
Assessments
(CEPAs)
Assessment
Literacy
Accessibility
Formative
Assessment
Performance
Assessment

3. 3
 devoting time currently spent on test-taking
tricks and non-aligned tests to learning.
The resulting time and cost savings could be
invested in implementing the envisioned role for
CEPAs (and formative assessment as part of
performance-based instruction). The effort will
require state-led capacity building (including in
assessment literacy) and multiple steps to ensure
the CEPAs and results meet high technical
standards.
Realigning accountability ownership and focus:
Increasing state/local roles in accountability testing
encourages greater ownership, enabling the US ED
to focus on supporting and monitoring equity,
program and assessment quality, and status/growth
outcomes – primarily in deeper learning. State
education agencies will also focus on these goals but
on a more granular – district/school – level.
At least at first, annual statewide on-demand tests
will be included in the accountability testing mix.
They will be more performance-based and focus far
less, if at all, on basic knowledge and skills, which
should be monitored in detail closer to the
classroom, where any gaps have to be addressed.
Since multiple CEPAs administered to each student
during the year will inform accountability results,
the on-demand tests can be scaled back – by
shortening the assessments such as by using only
“matrix-sampled” (in this case, the results could only
be reported in aggregate, but should be sufficient
for states to fulfill their oversight responsibilities).
And they can always dig deeper, since CEPA results
will be at the student level.
As confidence in CEPA results grows – and perhaps
as schools, districts, and/or states consistently
demonstrate they meet quality, growth, and equity
expectations – states may scale back the use of the
on-demand accountability tests, ultimately perhaps
to the key transition years (typically 4th and 8th
grades) and once in high school, or what was most
common prior to and in the early years of NCLB.
The scaling back could be reversed if warranted.
State education agencies will continue to be
responsible for ensuring high technical quality: the
valid, reliable, and comparable measurement of
learning for all students. This will include both any
on-demand accountability testing and the CEPAs.
Making It Happen
Implementing this option will require changes in
policy and practice. One path to using CEPA results
for accountability has been spelled out by Stuart
Kahl, PhD, a recognized assessment expert and
Founding Principal of Measured Progress, a not-for-
profit assessment services company. The multi-step
process, reflecting decades of experience and lessons
learned, would take three to five years.
Ensuring the technical quality of CEPA results
(validity, reliability, and comparability) in accordance
with professional/industry standards will be
straightforward, relying upon proven processes and
led by state education agencies. Periodic federal
review will also provide a check.
Despite the curriculum-embedded nature of CEPAs,
local choice in selecting which to administer, and
local scoring, the use of state-approved and field-
tested CEPA pools and appropriate audit procedures
should ensure measurement quality and
comparability of results. Decades of scoring
constructed-response items and portfolios for
accountability purposes have not only produced
highly effective systems but also demonstrated the
reliability of results.
Test security concerns should not be an issue. While
school/district personnel will select the CEPAs to
incorporate in their curricula, teachers will still have
to certify they followed specified directions, just as
they do for traditional accountability testing.
Concluding Remarks
This option addresses or helps to address the wide
range of high priorities enumerated in the Overview.
Given the potential to improve outcomes for all
students, especially for college, career, and life
readiness, and to increase educational efficiency, the
reauthorization of ESEA should at least permit, if
not encourage, options like this.