10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING

A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM

OF ASSESSMENTS
IN JOINING TOGETHER,
we underscore our belief that if states and districts implement the
enclosed ten principles for building and evolving a high-quality system
of assessments, they will be taking impactful and much needed steps
to bridge from current over-burdensome and incomplete assessment
practices and policies to a system that puts each and every student’s
learning at the center. Together, these principles lay out a vision for
systems focused on continuous improvement and the full array of
knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed for each student to succeed
beyond high school, in the workplace, and throughout life. While
individually our organizations and efforts may emphasize different
principles, collectively we share the goal of advancing equity in college,
career, and civic readiness. As such, we stand ready to support states,
districts, schools, and their communities in working toward building and
evolving systems that embrace all ten principles to foster high-quality
systems of assessments for all students.

2Revolutions Great Schools Partnership

Achieve iNACOL

Alliance for Excellent Education Jobs for the Future

Heidi Andrade, EdD, Associate KnowledgeWorks

Professor, Educational Psychology
and Methodology, University at Learning Forward
Albany School of Education
Learning Policy Institute
Center for Collaborative Education
MHA Labs
Center for Curriculum Redesign
National Association of State Boards
David T. Conley, PhD, Professor and of Education
Director, Center for Educational
Policy Research, University of Oregon, National Center for Learning
President, EdImagine Disabilities

EducationCounsel Stanford Center for Assessment,

Learning and Equity at the Stanford
Envision Learning Partners University Graduate School of
Education

To add your organization’s name to the 10 Principles signatories, please contact

Maureen O’Connell at [email protected].
 10 PRINCIPLES
for Building a High-Quality System of Assessments

ONE T WO THREE
Capture the array of Balance assessment Advance equity and
knowledge, skills, and of learning with be inclusive of and
behaviors needed for assessment for and accessible to all
college and career as learning through a students
readiness comprehensive set of
(i.e., deeper learning) tasks and measures

FO U R F IV E S IX
Build educator and Align assessments to Convey clear, coherent,
school capacity for support learning and and continuous data on
designing and using avoid duplication of student learning
assessments testing

SEV EN E IG H T NINE
Include meaningful, Encourage cycles of Employ high standards
ongoing input and review, calibration, of coherence, validity,
collaboration from and continuous reliability, and fairness
local communities and improvement
diverse stakeholders of assessments
in the development individually and as a
and continuous collective system TE N
improvement of the Protect data privacy
system
INTRODUCTION
No single assessment or piece of student In order to support states, districts,
work can provide educators, students, and communities in this, the signing
parents, and the public with information organizations and individuals offer the
about what students know and can following 10 principles as guidance and
do. High-quality, comprehensive, and common language for advancing a high-
timely information on student progress quality system of assessments. While the
is critical to ensuring that schools can primary audience for these principles
prepare each and every student for is state and district leaders, we hope to
success in school, college, careers, and follow this document with materials and
life. Educators, students, parents, and the tools that apply to schools, educators,
public use information from a variety of and communities. The principles draw
assessments of student learning to inform collectively on expertise developed
and empower educational decisions in over decades of studying and designing
real time and across each year. Many assessments and assessment systems, and
states and districts are working toward efforts to advance the full array of college-
developing and implementing high-quality and career-ready knowledge, skills, and
systems that align assessments with each behaviors for all students. (See references
other, and to college and career readiness, in appendix.) They also build on existing
and a comprehensive set of higher-order principles for high-quality assessments
thinking skills. While significant strides have and systems of assessments developed
been made in advancing the quality of by our organizations over the past several
individual assessments, there still remains years. What is new and groundbreaking in
much work across our country to improve this document is synthesizing this wealth
and better align systems of assessment. of wisdom into one clear, concise-yet-
States and districts have a critical moment comprehensive guide backed by well over
under ESSA and as we engage in a a dozen leading national organizations and
national dialogue on testing to accelerate experts in the field. We believe that those
and further evolve their work toward individuals and organizations leading state
comprehensive systems of assessments. and district assessment efforts should
accelerate their work toward a high-quality
system of assessments by considering
these 10 principles to guide that process.

1
 MULTIPLE PURPOSES FOR ASSESSMENT

Educational assessment
has been central to the Assessments allow teachers, school leaders,
Teachers &
national conversation and other staff to understand college- and
Leaders
on education, including career-ready knowledge and skill levels at
discussions on how many the beginning of a unit or school year, along
assessments are too many, the way, and at the end of the unit or the year,
and the purpose and use of in order to make informed decisions on instruction,
assessments. These debates learning strategies, programming, and supports in
are often focused narrowly response to assessment data for each individual
student. College- and career-ready-aligned assessments
on statewide summative and
designed and administered by educators or with
other required assessments.
educator and student input can also increase educator
In reality, educational
and student engagement, help teachers and leaders
assessments can take many identify inequities in opportunities and outcomes, and
forms, contain a variety of can increase the relevance of assessments to classroom
assessment item types, and teaching, learning, and continuous improvement.
take place at varying points
throughout the school year—
from projects and informal
problem-solving tasks in the
classroom to more formal When assessments are timely and
multiple choice, extended Students the purpose and results are clear and
responses or portfolios of understandable, they can help students
work. understand how their knowledge, skills, and
behaviors are developing and engage them to
Assessments serve a variety own and advance their learning. Assessments, such as
of purposes and many do performance assessments and projects, can themselves
not just measure learning be a learning opportunity, so they become assessments
outcomes and growth but for and as learning, not just assessments of learning.
are also vital to the process
of teaching and learning—
especially formative
assessments. Taken together Clear, timely assessment data that are
in a coherent system, the Families comparable and aligned to college and career
complete continuum of readiness can provide each family with the
assessment can provide a information they need to understand and
rich tapestry of information support their students’ progress toward college
and learning for teachers and and career readiness, to support and advocate for
leaders, students, families, improvement strategies at the school and district levels,
policymakers, and additional and to select a good-fit school and district for their
students.
stakeholders.

2
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
 No single assessment can
Policy- Assessment data that are valid, reliable, meet all of these purposes.
makers and comparable across schools, districts, In a high-quality system
and states, and that are coherent across of assessments, a variety
assessments, can provide key information of different assessments
to policymakers on whether district-, state-, work together to provide
or nation-wide policies and programs are having an coherent feedback on student
intended impact on student progress, where inequities learning and outcomes, and
exist, and where attention and resources may be most each assessment should
needed. These types of data can be obtained from
be designed for its specific
performance assessments and other complex tasks
use and purpose. Together,
when these tasks and scoring processes focus on
assessments in a high-quality
clearly specified knowledge and skills, where common
templates help create comparable tasks that are
system are built not just to
carefully reviewed and field-tested, and where trained measure content knowledge
raters score within a process that includes consistency but also to measure mastery
checks and auditing.
 of the full array of knowledge,
skills, and behaviors needed
for success in K-12 and
beyond, such as the ability
to: master core academic
Additional Public disaggregated assessment data that are content, think critically and
stake- comparable, valid, and reliable are important solve complex problems, work
holders for a variety of communities, including collaboratively, communicate
postsecondary institutions, education leaders,
effectively, learn how to
researchers, advocates, and employers, to help
learn, and develop academic
understand current education progress and inform
mindsets (collectively referred
programmatic and policy decisions—for example, to
to as “deeper learning”).
1
what extent students are in fact prepared for success
in postsecondary education, whether inequities in
student opportunities and outcomes are increasing or
decreasing from year-to-year and place-to-place, and
whether additional supports and strategies are needed
in schools, districts, states, and/or nationally.

3
 BUILDING & EVOLVING A

HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM

OF ASSESSMENTS
While states and districts have tells us is needed for students to 2. Curriculum-embedded tasks
made great strides toward be college and career ready and carried out in the classroom
building high-quality systems of how they best learn information. during the school year; 

assessments, in far too many A system of assessments can
3. Portfolios or collections of
places, students, educators, help states and districts improve
evidence that display a broad
parents, and the public still teaching and learning, and
set of competencies; 

receive information that: does not provide clear data on student
address the broad spectrum of progress through an array of 4. A combination of assessment
knowledge, skills, and behaviors assessments from formative to and item types, including
needed for student success; may summative. A high-quality system curriculum-embedded tasks,
duplicate or provide conflicting of assessments can be envisioned and portfolios and exhibitions
or incoherent results may come in two levels: 1) a variety of leading to a student defense. 

at the wrong time to inform types of tasks to demonstrate
instructional or programming understanding and apply learning What these types of assessments
changes (i.e., not timely). Issues of at the classroom or course level; have in common are their capacity
scope, quality, alignment, timing, combined with 2) a variety of to require students to construct
and efficiency have a significant assessments collected for the an answer, produce a product, or
impact on the assessments state and local level, with each perform an activity rather than
students take each year and assessment playing a different simply identify a predetermined
the quality of information that role in creating a complete picture answer. They can include, for
educators, families, students, and of the system’s ability to advance example, science experiments
the public are provided regarding its students’ college and career that students design, perform,
students’ instructional needs and readiness. analyze, and write up; computer
the performance of schools and programs that students create
All assessment systems should and test; and written or oral
systems.
be designed to evaluate a presentations about a research
The enclosed ten principles comprehensive set of higher- topic. Because these assessments
can offer guidance to state and order thinking skills and include typically require students to
district leaders as they evolve the one or more of the following: integrate knowledge, analysis,
current array of assessments and action, they are better than
1. Performance items or tasks
into a high-quality system of multiple-choice tests at measuring
(including as part of any
assessments. This evolution is 2
higher-order thinking skills. They
traditional “sit down” tests
particularly important given the are also better predictors of
used);
prominence of assessments as academic and vocational success
drivers in our education system, in tasks requiring complex


and given what research now thinking and performance.
3

4
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
An assessment system that critical in guiding the design and are duplicative, lower quality, or
includes these types of artifacts of use of assessments in the system. incoherent with the goals of the
student work throughout a year, education system; and
As states and districts design
especially when combined with
and implement their systems, we •• States and districts will need
valid measures of the other skills
recognize that they will need to to create a variety of means to
and behaviors needed for college
address inherent challenges communicate in a coordinated
and career success, can provide
in developing a high-quality manner with stakeholders
a more robust and cohesive
system of assessments, about assessment.
picture of student readiness than
including:
most current assessments can We encourage those individuals
today. Such a system should •• Different individuals and and organizations leading state
inform teaching and learning at political entities within a system and local systems of assessment
the classroom level, and should are typically responsible to seek out opportunities to
include comparable, valid, for creating, administering, collectively work with peers,
reliable data that are statewide developing, and using different technical experts, other
for accountability and more assessments—such as at the organizations, policymakers,
systemic decisions. Such a system state, local, or school levels— and stakeholders (including
should also help ensure that that and mechanisms for regular educators, parents, and
assessments are aligned, are not coordination and deliberation community members) to address
duplicative, and meet the purpose are needed; these challenges of high-quality
for which they were designed. assessment systems. We offer
•• States and districts need 10 principles for building a high-
Creating a high-quality system to design a system that quality system of assessments to
of assessments requires explicitly serves and addresses provide guidance and a common
a mindset and process the different information language as communities,
shift in order to move from needs of multiple users and districts, and states engage in this
developing or selecting stakeholders, which requires process.
individual assessments to a systems-thinking approach
designing a coherent set of and a theory of action around
assessments that advances serving these needs;
the full array of college- and
career-ready knowledge, skills, •• States and districts may need
and behaviors. In part, the ten to innovate in order to create
principles in this document speak or find appropriate high-quality
specifically to some of the mindset assessments that are accessible
and process shifts that are to all students and are aligned
involved in building or enhancing to true college and career
a comprehensive system of readiness;
assessments – including the shift
•• It is necessary to build educator
to a theory of action and checks
capacity to create, administer,
for coherence – which are still
and interpret high-quality
nascent in most systems. These
assessments to inform
principles are grounded in the
instruction;
idea that a high-quality system of
assessments is based in a theory •• There must be regular
of action that aims to capture auditing of assessments at
complex knowledge and skills the district and state levels
needed for success in college and to determine alignment and
career. This theory of action is discontinue assessments that

5
 10 PRINCIPLES
for Building a High-Quality System
of Assessments

ONE A high-quality system of assessments should be anchored in and assess

students’ deeper-learning knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary for
Capture the array
college, career, and civic readiness. These include the ability to master
of knowledge, skills, core academic content, think critically and solve complex problems, work
and behaviors collaboratively, communicate effectively, learn how to learn, and develop
needed for college, academic mindsets. Without assessments of these applied knowledge,
career, and civic skills, and behaviors, there is a risk that they will not be valued or
readiness (i.e., explicitly taught in the classroom; and that students, educators, and
parents lack information on whether students are on track to succeed
deeper learning)
in college and careers. Academic assessments should be aligned to a
state’s rigorous standards for college and career readiness and should
also go beyond mathematics and English/language arts to measure other
important knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed for success in college,
careers, and life. A high-quality system of assessments should prioritize
performance assessments and projects to capture deeper-learning
outcomes in a robust way.

TWO A high-quality system of assessments places a focus on incorporating

a wide variety of assessments from the state and local levels to inform
Balance assessment
educational decisions, ideally with each assessment contributing a
of learning with
specific purpose and use within the coherent whole. This comprehensive
assessment for and array of measures not only informs accountability, but importantly
as learning through a allows educators and students to inform their future instructional,
comprehensive set of learning, and studying strategies (assessment for learning) and to learn
tasks and measures from the process of their assessment experiences (assessment as
learning). For example, a capstone project or assessments like those in
the International Baccalaureate program are examples of summative
assessments that are also performance-based and designed to advance
teaching and student learning while providing information to students,
educators, and the public. The system should elevate a focus on helping
educators use data from across all of these assessments to inform
teaching, student learning strategies, and continuous improvement in a
timely manner, while ensuring the set of assessments also informs public
accountability and systemic improvement.

6
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
 THR EE At the school and district levels, a high-quality system of assessments should
advance equity by providing data that highlights learning outcomes and by
Advance equity
providing learning experiences and information that support high-quality, college-
and be inclusive of and career-ready teaching and learning for each and every student and group
and accessible to of students. Efforts to embed equity in systems of assessment should embody
all students broader systemic efforts to disrupt patterns of inequity, bias, and exclusion in our
education systems while advancing more student-centered learning approaches.
The array of data produced should include some information on college and
career readiness that is comparable, valid, and reliable statewide, so that
stakeholders have a sense of student learning across schools and districts and
across groups of students. Each assessment within a high-quality system—and
the totality of the assessments within that system—should be aligned to college
and career readiness, and inclusive of and accessible to all students, including
students with disabilities and English language learners. Assessments should be
designed to allow for accommodations for students with disabilities and English
learners, be designed in a way that incorporates the principles of Universal
4
Design for Learning, and should maintain high standards for all students.
Assessments should be fair, as outlined in The Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing developed jointly by the American Educational Research
Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council
on Measurement in Education. Alternate assessments aligned to alternate
achievement standards should only be administered where necessary and
appropriate. Additionally, knowledge, skills, and behaviors assessed should be
those that can be taught and mastered in the classroom so that assessments do
not presuppose students coming to school with prior knowledge from particular
contexts.

FOU R A high-quality system of assessments should be accompanied by efforts to

build the capacity and resources needed to support the shift to a new system
Build educator and
of assessments, which includes the work that teachers do every day to assess
school capacity for
student learning. The system should also ensure that teachers and leaders
designing and using are prepared with the tools, knowledge, and skills to develop, administer, and
assessments score assessments (where appropriate) and use information from the various
assessments in the system. Teachers must also have opportunities to develop
the skills to design meaningful assessment experiences—both formative and
summative—so that when used together, educators, parents, schools, and
districts have the complete set of information they need to support student
learning. Finally, as teachers build these skills, tools, and practices, they should
have the support of their school and district to take the time and training
needed to become skilled in new assessment practices, and the culture should
encourage some risk-taking and innovation in this area. These professional
learning opportunities and tools are not standalone trainings but are built into
the school culture, structure, and routines, enabling and empowering teams of
educators (including teachers, principals, and other educators) to develop and
use quality assessments to support teaching and leading for deeper learning
outcomes. At the same time, students should be intentionally prepared for
shifts in assessment practices to ensure that they are engaged and increasingly
comfortable with new assessment formats that elevate deeper learning.

7
 FI V E A high-quality system of assessments should be as efficient as possible
for teachers and students, while recognizing the critical role that a
Align assessments
variety of assessments play in a quality education system. Assessments
to support learning should be organized around a theory of action that efficiently captures
and avoid duplica- and encourages the full array of college- and career-ready knowledge,
tion of testing skills, and behaviors. The goal should not be to minimize time on testing
solely for the sake of time—which could lead to eliminating some of the
most important indicators of student learning, such as performance
assessments. Instead, those selecting, designing, and aligning
assessments should ensure that the system measures the highest-value
knowledge, skills, and behaviors, such as deeper learning skills, and
should ensure coherence among those assessments, while eliminating
any duplicative assessments. For example, curriculum-embedded
performance assessments, such as extended tasks, can help align and
maximize assessment experiences because students and educators
experience them as instructional time, and yet they are designed and
scored to provide reliable disaggregated information on student learning
and system performance. Audits of the system of assessments at the
state, local, and school levels can help provide an initial check of what
is presently in place, and help eliminate assessments that are poorly
aligned, low-quality, or duplicative, in order to minimize testing time and
maximize the use of assessment for learning. Ongoing communication
mechanisms are needed to ensure that schools, districts, and states
are coordinating around what information is being collected from
assessments in the system.

SIX Starting from the principles outlined in Knowing What Students Know, a
high-quality system of assessments should enable complete, coherent,
Convey clear,
continuous, and clear pictures of student and school progress to college
coherent, and and career readiness, in a way that data from individual assessments
continuous data on 5
are often found lacking. To demonstrate this coherence, assessments
student learning should align with curriculum and instruction (horizontal coherence) so
that assessment results are in alignment with expectations and what
students are being taught. Assessments should also align with each
other within the system, so that formative assessments are coherent
with summative and any other assessments, and so that, up and down
the levels of classroom, school, district, and state assessments, the
results provide a coherent picture (vertical coherence). Additionally, the
assessment system should provide a picture of student learning over
time (continuity), incorporating student learning progressions into the
design of assessments across grade levels. Data tools built to accompany
the system of assessments should be tailored to the needs of different
data users, such as students, parents, teachers, community leaders, and
policymakers, for interpreting assessment data and identifying needed
educational changes as a result of the data. These data should capture
progress on mastering the variety of knowledge, skills, and behaviors
needed for college and career readiness, and assessment data should
be disaggregated by groups of students to the maximum extent possible

8
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
 for transparency. High-quality information from the system of assessments
should be timely, accessible, and clear for educators, students, families, schools,
districts, and other stakeholders to support high-quality instructional shifts and
engagement in the improvement process. This means that the various parts of
an assessment system must work together across system levels. State and local
data systems and data dashboards should also be updated to capture and
display a fuller array of college- and career-readiness indicators.

S EV EN A high-quality system of assessments should be developed and continuously

improved with robust stakeholder engagement and clear communication
Include meaningful,
to ensure that key users like educators, students, parents, employers,
ongoing input and postsecondary institutions, and community leaders understand, find value
collaboration from in, and support the system of assessments. Engagement should include
local communities and gaining input on how information from assessments can be shared in the
diverse stakeholders in most accessible and helpful way, as well as discussion of how assessments are
the development and used in an ongoing manner as part of the teaching and learning process. For
example, audits of an assessment system can help key users of assessment
continuous improvement
data and stakeholders understand the types of information contributed by
of the system
each assessment, whether there is good alignment to college and career
readiness and alignment among assessments, whether there is duplication
between assessments, whether there is an imbalance between formative and
summative assessment, and other characteristics across a system. This process
can prepare communities and stakeholders to productively engage in public
conversations about a system of assessments.

EIG H T A high-quality system of assessments should include mechanisms to pilot

and evaluate innovative assessments and then incorporate and continuously
Encourage cycles of
improve those that capture and reflect the deeper-learning skills needed
review, calibration, for college and career readiness and more student-centered learning. This
and continuous includes locally determined assessments aligned to college and career
improvement readiness—which often allow more educator and student input into design for
of assessments increased instructional relevance, buy-in, and sustainability; and assessments
individually and as a that allow students to personalize their learning and show mastery in a
collective system way that best reflects this personalization, such as competency-based
performance assessments. States, districts, and schools should collaborate
on and implement strong continuous improvement mechanisms to help
ensure changes in assessments are serving their intended purposes, and that
successful assessment innovations that advance equity spread and scale while
weak ones are quickly abandoned. Innovations and changes should be rolled
out over time, to ensure there is time to continuously improve them along
the way.

9
 N I NE A high-quality system of assessments should be aligned with a state,
district, or community’s clear theory of action around preparing students
Employ high standards
for college and career readiness. It should employ high standards of
of coherence, validity, validity, reliability, and fairness for all students for each assessment
reliability, and fairness contingent on the use of the specific assessment (e.g. formative vs.
summative), aligned with the theory of action for that system. The system
should also demonstrate coherence among the assessments, and each
assessment should be used in a manner consistent with its intended
purpose. Quality and validity take different forms depending on the
purpose and use of the assessment. Taken as a whole, the system of
assessments should be guided by the Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing. The Standards make clear that test scores should
not be used alone for consequential purposes, and when a system of
multiple assessment points is aggregated together, the resulting data
about student performance provide a more accurate picture when
high-stakes decisions are being made. Additionally, because processes
for certifying the validity and reliability of a full system of assessment
are still being developed and are continuously evolving, states, districts,
and schools should examine the coherence of the system across
all assessments in addition to the validity, reliability, and fairness of
individual assessments.

T EN High-quality student data are critical to empowering students,

families, educators, and communities to learn more about educational
Protect data privacy
effectiveness. Data collected through assessments must be transparent
and as meaningful as possible for stakeholders in order to spur advances
in educational quality and college and career readiness. At the same
time, those data must be protected and secure. Data and privacy
policies and practices should meet the criteria outlined in the Student
Data Principles developed by the Data Quality Campaign and 33 other
organizations, and should continually evolve to meet current assessment
6
and data technology capabilities.

10
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
 ENDNOTES
1. Decoding Deeper Learning in the 5. James W. Pellegrino, Naomi
Classroom (Menlo Park: William Chudowsky, and Robert Glaser,
and Flora Hewlett Foundation; eds., Knowing what Students
Washington, DC: Education Know: The Science and Design
Writers Association, 2017), of Educational Assessment
http://www.hewlett.org/wp- (Washington, DC: National
content/uploads/2017/06/DL- Academy Press, 2001).
guide.pdf.
6. “10 Foundational Principles
2. David T. Conley, A New Era for for Using and Safeguarding
Educational Assessment (Boston: Students’ Personal
Jobs for the Future, 2014), Information,” Student Data
http://www.jff.org/sites/default/ Principles, n.d.,
files/publications/materials/A- http://studentdataprinciples.
New-Era-for-Educational- org/the-principles/.
Assessment-092414_0.pdf.

3. Linda Darling-Hammond, Next

Generation Assessment: Moving
Beyond the Bubble Test to
Support 21st Century Learning
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2014).

4. Universal Design for Learning

is a framework to improve
teaching and learning
based on research into how
people learn. The framework
includes a set of principles
for curriculum development
and the development of
flexible learning environments
that draw from research in
cognitive neuroscience.
http://www.udlcenter.org/
aboutudl (link broken)

12
10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
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materials/The-Why-What-Where- http://www.apa.org/science/
Assessment in Education.
How-121415.pdf programs/testing/standards.aspx.
http://gordoncommission.org/
Charles Fadel, Maya Bialik, rsc/pdfs/gordon_commission_ Darling-Hammond, Linda, Gene
and Bernie Trilling, 2015. Four- technical_report.pdf Wilhoit, and Linda Pittenger.
Dimensional Education: The 2014. Accountability for College
James W. Pellegrino, Naomi
Competencies Learners Need to and Career Readiness: Developing a
Chudowsky, and Robert Glaser,
Succeed. Boston, MA: Center for New Paradigm. Stanford: Stanford
eds. 2001. Knowing what Students
Curriculum Redesign. Center for Opportunity Policy
Know: The Science and Design in Education. https://edpolicy.
of Educational Assessment. stanford.edu/sites/default/files/
Washington, DC: National Academy publications/accountability-college-
Press.

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 and-career-readiness-developing- Darling-Hammond 2010. Criteria for Procuring and Evaluating
new-paradigm.pdf. High-Quality Assessments. 2014.
Darling-Hammond, Wilhoit, and Washington, DC: The Council
Thompson, Jeri, Susan Lyons, Pittenger 2014. of Chief State School Officers.
Scott Marion, Lillian Pace, and
Sigman, D., & Mancuso, M. (2017). https://www.ccsso.org/resource-
Matt Williams. 2016. Ensuring
Designing a comprehensive library/comprehensive-statewise-
and Evaluating Assessment Quality
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for Innovative Assessment and
CA: WestEd. https://www.wested.
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org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/
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resource-designing-a-
knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/
comprehensive-assessment- Pecheone, Raymond, et.al. N.d.
files/u1/ensuring-evaluating-
system.pdf Redesigning assessment systems:
innovative-assessments.pdf.
emerging lessons from three
Thompson, Lyons, Marion, Pace,
Principle Four states Boston, MA: Jobs for the
and Williams 2016.
Build educator and school capacity Future.
for designing and using assessments Principle Six Sigman, D., & Mancuso, M. (2017).
Convey clear, coherent, and
Darling-Hammond 2010. Designing a comprehensive
continuous data on student learning assessment system. San Francisco,
A Supporting State Policy CA: WestEd. https://www.wested.
Andrade, Huff, and Brooke 2012.
Framework for Next Generation org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/
Assessment Systems. N.d. Darling-Hammond, Wilhoit, and resource-designing-a-
Cincinnati: KnowledgeWorks. Pittenger 2014. comprehensive-assessment-
http://www.knowledgeworks.org/ system.pdf
sites/default/files/u1/essa-policy- Gordon 2013.
next-generation-assessment.pdf. Principle Eight
A Supporting State Policy
Encourage cycles of review,
Martinez, Adriana, and Jennifer Framework n.d.
calibration, and continuous
Davis Poon. 2015. Innovation in improvement of assessments
Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser
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2001.
Student-Centered Learning. system
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org/resource-library/innovation- input and collaboration from Evaluating High-Quality
action-state-pathways-advancing- local communities and diverse Assessments 2014.
student-centered-learning stakeholders in the development
Principle Nine
and continuous improvement of the
Principle Five Employ high standards of coherence,
system
Align assessments to support validity, reliability, and fairness
learning and avoid duplication Conley and Darling-Hammond
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Psychological Testing 2014.
Chattergoon, Rajendra, and Scott Comprehensive Statewide Assessment
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Boards of Education. http://www. The Council of Chief State School Marion, Scott, Lillian Pace, Matt
nasbe.org/wp-content/uploads/ Officers. https://www.ccsso.org/ Williams, and Susan Lyons.
Chattergoon-Marion.pdf. resource-library/comprehensive- 2016. Project Narrative: Creating
statewise-assessment-systems
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10 PRINCIPLES FOR BUILDING A HIGH-QUALITY SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENTS
a State Vision to Support the https://dataqualitycampaign.org/
Design and Implementation of resource/four-policy-priorities-
an Innovative Assessment and make-data-work-students/
Accountability System. Cincinnati:
Ten Steps Every District Should Take
KnowledgeWorks. http://www.
Today. 2015. Washington, DC:
knowledgeworks.org/sites/
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default/files/u1/project-narrative-
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www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1
080/00461520.2016.1145550.

Principle Ten
Protect data privacy

Student Data Principles. N.d.

“10 Foundational Principles for
Using and Safeguarding Students’
Personal Information.” http://
studentdataprinciples.org/the-
principles/.

Student Data Principles. N.d. “Four

Policy Priorities to Make Data Work
for Students.”

Photographs courtesy of Allison

Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for
American Education: Images of
Teachers and Students in Action

JFF and EducationCounsel are

grateful to the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation for its
support of this effort.

Suggested Citation: Ten

Principles for a High-Quality
System of Assessments (2018).
Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.

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