What Use Is Educational Assessment?

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Michael J. Feuer,Amy I. Berman,James W. Pellegrino
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219843871
• Subject Matter: Introduction

8 ANNALS, AAPSS, 683, May 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219843871

What Use Is

Educational

Assessment?

By

AMY I. BERMAN,

MICHAEL J. FEUER,

and

JAMES W. PELLEGRINO

843871ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYWHAT USE IS EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT?

research-article2019

Keywords: educational systems; test-based evidence;

assessment costs and benefits; education

policy; accountability; systems monitoring;

student placement; classroom assessment;

digital learning

With testing and assessment1 a fixture of

American education since the mid-

nineteenth century, the title for this volume

may be puzzling. Is it possible that we have

been relying on a complex and evolving set of

methods and metrics for the assessment of

teaching, learning, and schooling for this long

without having a clear and accepted under-

standing of its uses? Cynics might take the

question as affirmation of failure in policy and

politics: another instance of technology run

amok without adequate public understanding

or approval. Indeed, people agitated by the

increasing and questionable role of test scores—

to assess learning and achievement, to influ-

ence curriculum and instruction, to hold

students and their teachers accountable for

results, to guide decisions about placement at

various levels of education, and to inform

Correspondence: aberman@naeducation.org

Amy I. Berman is the deputy director of the National

Academy of Education and a doctoral candidate at the

George Washington University. She holds a JD from

Harvard and has worked in civil rights compliance in

two federal agencies. Her current research and teach-

ing focus on legal, policy, and equity-related issues in

education.

Michael J. Feuer is dean and professor of education

policy at the Graduate School of Education and Human

Development of The George Washington University

and immediate past president of the National Academy

of Education. He was founding director of the National

Academies Board on Testing and Assessment and has

written extensively on the economics of education,

international comparisons, and education policy.