The George W. Bush Institute appreciates the opportunity to provide information to Chair Cassidy on how state assessment and accountability systems, including school-level measures of student growth, can best serve parents and policymakers, and how the federal government can support continued improvement. These issues are central to ensuring every student has access to a high-quality education, regardless of where they live, their family income, race or ethnicity, or other characteristics.
While states appropriately retain primary authority over education policy, the federal government plays a critical role as a backstop – ensuring transparency and comparability of information for parents and policymakers and access to a quality education for all students. Federal policymakers should continue to require states to administer annual, statewide summative assessments aligned to state standards and publicly report results disaggregated by student subgroup. These requirements are foundational to informed parent decision-making and to policymakers’ ability to identify disparities and drive meaningful improvement.
As the Chairman considers additional ways to strengthen state assessment and accountability systems to better serve students and families, we urge him to consider policies and strategies that:
- Encourage states to use measures of student growth alongside proficiency in accountability systems to recognize both how much students are improving and whether they are achieving at grade level. Relying on growth alone can mask whether students have mastered the knowledge and skills needed for their next step.
- Maintain a focus on single, grade-level, criterion-referenced summative assessments aligned to state academic standards to understand if students are proficient on state academic standards.
- Promote alignment of statewide assessment cut scores with state definitions of grade-level proficiency and with the National Assessment of Educational Progress benchmarks to ensure state and national testing reflects similar levels of rigor.
- Promote alignment of state definitions of grade-level proficiency with the National Assessment of Educational Progress benchmarks to ensure consistency between state and national measures of performance.
- Refine accountability measures, particularly School Quality or Student Success indicators (SQSS), allowed under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), to include only those that are closely aligned with student academic outcomes.
- Ensure assessment results and school and district accountability ratings are easily accessible to parents, policymakers, and other stakeholders through centralized online dashboards that use clear school ratings and understandable data.
- Partner with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations to provide parents and policymakers with meaningful information on student performance and persistence in private schools participating in state choice programs, while also supporting rigorous research on program effectiveness.
Additional details on each of these recommendations, along with examples of strong state practice, are outlined below:
- School accountability measures should reflect both achievement and growth: No single measure can fully capture student achievement or school quality. A balanced accountability system that incorporates both proficiency – how students perform relative to grade-level standards – and growth – how much progress students make over time – provides a fairer, more accurate picture of school performance and better supports instructional improvement.
- Proficiency measures indicate whether students are meeting state academic standards and are on track for long-term success. They maintain high expectations for all students, signal alignment to rigorous grade-level standards, and allow for transparent comparisons across schools and student groups. Used alone, however, proficiency measures do not capture instructional impact and can undervalue schools serving students who begin far behind.
- Growth measures capture how much students improve year over year, regardless of their starting point. They are essential for recognizing schools that accelerate learning, highlighting instructional effectiveness, and encouraging continuous improvement. But growth alone is not sufficient. An exclusive focus on improvement can mask persistently low achievement and reduce urgency around reaching grade-level expectations.
- Families and policymakers ultimately want schools that both raise achievement and ensure readiness for what comes next. Progress matters – but outcomes matter too. Growth without proficiency leaves students unprepared for college, careers, and civic life.
- Texas is a strong example of how states can combine achievement and growth measures in their accountability systems. The state calculates accountability ratings by looking at school performance across three domains:
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- absolute performance on the state annual assessment; college, career, and military readiness measures; and high school graduation rates.
- academic growth on the state assessment or growth as a comparison of campus performance with peer campuses. (The higher of these scores is used.)
- closing the gaps measurement that compares achievement of specific student groups to determine if learning gaps exist between groups and whether progress is being made to close them.
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- A single, rigorous, standards-aligned assessment at each grade level provides reliable data for parents and policymakers: Statewide summative assessments used for growth and proficiency measures should be valid, reliable, and comparable across the state, enabling meaningful, apples-to-apples comparisons of student performance. States should regularly review and refine academic standards to ensure that assessments measure the most critical knowledge and skills students need to succeed in the 21st century.
- Assessments used for accountability should be criterion-referenced and aligned to state standards, indicating whether students are performing at grade level. Nationally norm-referenced assessments, by contrast, compare students to their peers and assign percentile rankings but do not measure mastery of specific state standards. As a result, growth measured solely through norm-referenced assessments does not indicate progress toward grade-level proficiency.
- Cut scores – the thresholds for meeting proficiency – should align with grade-level expectations. States should routinely compare their assessment outcomes with results from NAEP. Large discrepancies, where significantly more students score proficient on state tests than on NAEP, may signal that state standards or cut scores are set too low.
- A single statewide assessment at each grade level is essential for understanding how students are performing across the state. Without a common assessment, comparisons break down and policymakers, educators, and families are left with averages and anecdotes that obscure student needs. A unified assessment system ensures every student is counted and every family can see whether their child is on track.
- Accountability should focus on outcomes: ESSA allows for states to use SQSS indicators as measures in their accountability systems. While accountability systems benefit from meaningful supplements, such as indicators of college, career, and military readiness and performance in subjects beyond English language arts, math, and science, states should avoid accountability measures that are not aligned to academic progress. As more research is available on the strength of SQSS indicators, particularly regarding postsecondary readiness and access to coursework, states and the federal government should consider refining these measures.
- Disaggregation is essential: The federal government should continue to explicitly require states to publicly report assessment (and other accountability) data by subgroup including race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, special education status, and English-language learner status. Disaggregated data are essential for identifying patterns, uncovering disparities, and ensuring that the performance of every student group in every school is visible and addressed. Without comparable, disaggregated data, averages mask inequities and too many students are left behind.
- Transparent data empowers families and policymakers: States should publish clear, accessible, and timely school and district report cards that provide actionable information for parents, educators, and policymakers. Report cards should be easy to find, prominently posted on state education agency websites, and designed with families in mind – simple to navigate, mobile friendly, and intuitive to use. Florida and Texas, for example, make school performance information widely available through centralized online dashboards and clearly communicate overall school ratings, helping families quickly understand how schools are performing.
To be meaningful, report cards must present information in clear, understandable ways. States should use simple indicators that are intuitive to parents and community members and avoid technical jargon. Numeric data should be paired with plain-language explanations that help families understand what results mean, how assessments are designed, and how performance relates to grade-level expectations. Florida’s longstanding A–F school grades illustrate how clear ratings, paired with supporting detail, can improve transparency and public understanding while still allowing users to explore deeper performance data.
Timeliness and context are essential. Results should be released as close to the end of the school year as possible and include year-over-year trend data so users can see whether performance is improving or declining. Schools and district data should be presented in context, with comparisons to state averages and similar schools. Colorado provides a strong example of this approach, highlighting student growth trends and comparative performance on its state report cards to support informed decisions by families and policymakers.
