Janet Cumbee, Ed. D Leadership Fellow, Cornerstone

• The entire school or district must be involved in using assessment effectively. The system of assessment gains visibility and credibility among parents when it is endorsed by the entire school.
• Teachers cannot create assessment systems alone; they need the emotional support, collaborative teamwork, and shared motivation to build a system of assessment tools that serves their students and community.
• Effective schools have principals and administrators who provide leadership in integrating assessment with the curriculum and instruction.
• Literacy assessments should start with a shared, conceptual view of the goals of reading assessment and the variety of tools that are available.
• Teachers need to share practices that work.
• Teachers need to make choices that provide a coherent set of assessment tools that can be used on a regular basis. State-level assessment batteries or standards, district outcomes or portfolios, or school-based report cards are all options that can be used to create a systematic approach to reading assessment.
• Assessment reform in schools must involve communication and negotiation among stakeholders about the kinds of information that supports students' educational growth.
• Administrators (and parents) need to learn how teachers use reading assessments just as much as teachers need to learn new kind of assessments.

How does this look in a Cornerstone school? External as well as internal assessments are embedded throughout the entire school. There is a consistency in these practices. Teachers and administrators talk about the assessments, chart the results, and discuss the ways they can improve their practice to meet the needs of the students. Parents and students are aware of the importance of these assessments as well as the expectations for learning associated with each assessment. The following chart is an example of students and teachers charting their progress.

Teachers are colleagues who support each other as they build their knowledge of assessment and how to use it effectively. Principals are an integral part of this support as they actively participate in and provide opportunities for teachers to extend their professional growth through common planning times, focused professional development, book studies, etc. The principal is seen as a learner too. This chart is a result of a school wide retreat on units of study in which the teachers planned a year of writing instruction at each grade level.

Administrators, local and central office, assist teachers in understanding the purposes for the assessments, in analyzing them, and in sharing best practices. Principals work to assist teachers in integrating the assessments into the daily schedule. Teachers know the principal is continuously expanding her knowledge about the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Charts like the example below can be used to focus the discussion on assessment, to review the progress of students, and to share strategies with teachers on practices that have been successful in moving children.

Principals and literacy coaches are instrumental in developing a vision for literacy instruction in the school. The asset map and the literacy action plans are tools to support this vision. Once a vision is established the school can then determine internal assessments that measure the effectiveness of the implementation of the literacy instruction.

In reflection I know it is easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of data and with the responsibility of analyzing it, and clearly communicating it to teachers and parents. In the midst of sifting through this data, attempting to keep our thoughts clearly focused and trying not to be overwhelmed, we need to remind ourselves of the real purpose of assessment. Paris states, "At the simplest level, assessment should be a way to communicate information about children's accomplishments to others. If children's welfare is the highest educational priority, then teachers, parents, and administrators should work together to design assessment systems that bring the greatest benefits to children" (2002, p. 159). So we continue to sift and analyze and communicate and remember that if we do our job well, our children will benefit.

REFERENCES
Paris, S.G., Paris, A. H., Carpenter, R. D. (2002). Effective practices for assessing young readers. In B. M. Taylor & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Teaching Reading: Effective Schools, Accomplished Teachers (pp. 141-160). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

For further reading, a bibliography on assessment (taken directly from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development website [http://www.ascd.org]) follows.