December 15, 2020
Many educators who think they are “reformers” would like performance-based tests
Parents are being told that the first big issue for a new Secretary of Education in the Biden administration is deciding whether schools should test or not test students in 2020. However, a much bigger issue is whether schools should continue to give Common Core-aligned tests (once national testing using Common Core-aligned tests resumes, as it is likely to do, in the absence of another form of accountability for USED and the states to use) or switch to “performance-based” tests.
Many educators who think they are “reformers” would like performance-based tests. They are encouraging other educators to “rethink” accountability “by replacing high-stakes exams with performance-based assessments.” So, if Congress decides to eliminate the tests now given (which are all aligned to Common Core’s standards), schools will still have to give tests based on “college-ready” standards because they promised to do so in ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act passed by Congress in December 2015—and most non-state standards for K-12 described as “college-ready” are already based on Common Core’s. Any new tests that Congress or USED may mandate that states use in place of the “college-ready” tests they are now giving will have to be based on the same “college-ready” standards that state Departments of Education adopted when they signed onto a four-year State Plan for ESSA after 2015 (with approval needed only by USED itself) in order to get Title I money. The tests may even be called “performance-based,” and parents and teachers will likely consider them better than the Common Core-aligned “standardized” tests now being used.