Assessment for Learning Project Phase Two

The Assessment for Learning Project (ALP) uses formative assessment as a high leverage practice in a large]scale effort to identify proof points, build demonstration sites and galvanize the field around the idea that the Common Core and Deeper Learning goals can come to life for students and teachers in their day]to]day experiences. The Common Core State Standards and numerous actions by states to establish comparable, realistic yet ambitious expectations for students and those who support them has dramatically advanced the status of public education in the United States. We have embraced standards based reform and must now make those new standards reality for every learner. The Common Core has already accelerated the improvement of summative assessments and we are beginning to see a cascading effect on other key educational practices. There is growing consensus that preparing young people to succeed and thrive requires nurturing not only content knowledge but also transferable deeper learning skills and dispositions. Perhaps the most promising shift is the realization that we will not reach these new expectations until we move toward more personalized systems of education in which educators and students are able to continuously monitor individual growth to shape learning and all students are supported in taking ownership of their learning. High quality formative assessments must become an essential and integral part of the learning process, providing a means to ensure the standards are constantly guiding instruction, translating into practice, guiding the decisions teachers make about students as well as the decisions students make about their own professional growth, and serving as the basis for meaningful conversations with parents and communities ALP was initiated in 2015 to catalyze new and scale existing innovations in assessment for learning staked to richer, deeper definitions of student success. This proposal expands ALP into a second phase. The initiative leverages investments in high]quality summative assessments, the 51st state design for systems of strong formative assessments, and the fieldfs desire to develop robust local capacity in the use of non]summative assessments to achieve personalized, deeper learning for all students. The Assessment for Learning Project is under the leadership of the Center for innovation in Education (CIE). CIE launched in 2013 with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.