The Value of Assessments

Assessments have become a very hot topic lately. One of the reasons why assessments have come into current educational debate is due to the mandated assessments in the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB). It is true that assessments have been used for many years and reasons before the NCLB act of 2001. Despite the current negative feelings toward assessments, they can be a very positive and motivating force in education. 

The No Child Left Behind act was not the first attempt to legislate assessment testing. The 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act called for accountability in schools (Lewis & Pett, 2005). The changes of 1994 put into motion the call for better leaders in education which happened in states such as Kentucky, Main, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina and California (Lewis & Pett, 2005). Many other states had bright educators who had great ideas to create better standards based systems (Lewis & Pett, 2005). Like the many cases a lot of states did not receive monetary support or technical support to create better assessments. The NCLB act now requires every state to develop plans for annual progress of all students (Lewis & Pett, 2005). One result of the act has been the doubling of testing at the state level to show improvement. If a school fails to improve that state is required to provide intensive support for the improvement of the failing school and then is in danger of being shut down if not progress is made (Lewis & Pett, 2005).