No one is perfectly satisfied with the current suite of state assessments. Teachers and other educators complain about the time it takes to prepare for and administer the tests. States take too long to process the results, making them less meaningful for parents and educators.
So what can be done? In a new piece for Education Next, Dale Chu and I sketch out the broad contours of a new vision for state assessments. At the heart is our belief that state tests should be faster and cheaper than they are today. We write that this would, “return state tests to their ultimate purpose—to serve as an honest check on schools and districts, rather than as detailed blueprints for instruction for every student (a function that state tests were never meant to perform).”
The metaphor we use in the piece is that state tests should function less like COVID lab tests, which were highly accurate but faced long processing delays, and more like the rapid, at-home tests that provided actionable, on-the-spot information to individuals. In our view, state tests have opted too much for perfect precision at the expense of speed and usability.
But let’s talk brass tacks. What would shorter, faster state tests actually look like in practice? What should states prioritize?
Let’s assume the federal testing mandate remains in place (and we think it should, with some new flexibilities). That means states would continue to test every student in grades 3-8 in reading and math, plus at least once in high school, plus science tests at least once per grade span.
But instead of the current system, where every student is tested on grade-level standards regardless of their performance level, states should be allowed to test students above and below their grade level. To combat tracking, states would have to provide parents with an estimate of their child’s actual grade-level performance, and to provide those results within no more than 2-4 weeks of the test administration date.
States would also continue to report the percentage of students at each school who met grade-level performance benchmarks by the end of the year. But those scores could be banked, and if a 4th grader demonstrated they could already do 6th grade math, they shouldn’t have to keep testing on content they already mastered.
The tests themselves could be much shorter than they are today. Most states have weeks-long testing windows, and schools often have to set aside an entire day for each subject. That’s too much, and it’s far longer than other tests take. The NWEA MAP Growth tests, for example, are untimed, but they take students about 30-100 minutes depending on the grade and subject. The NAEP tests take 90 minutes per subject.
Even high-stakes tests can get results with much less testing time than the typical state test. The ACT takes two hours and 55 minutes to assess students in four subjects, and it’s planning to go even shorter. The SAT assesses reading and math in two hours and 14 minutes of testing time. The DuoLingo English proficiency test takes one hour.
None of these tests are perfect, but perfection is not the goal. The whole point of state tests is for the results to be used. Right now, their primary use is for state accountability monitoring, but that’s not enough. By significantly speeding up the reporting process, that would allow parents and educators to actually use the results to make decisions. Recent polling data suggests this is what parents want as well—they support state tests in general, but they are MORE supportive when they know the data will be used to get resources to struggling students.
By freeing up time and space with shorter tests, I would add some additional skill and content-based checks at different grade levels. For example, states could conduct short “phonics checks” at the end of kindergarten or first grade to make sure all kids have learned to decode letters into words. Similarly, students would likely benefit from a “multiplication check” to make sure they mastered their times tables before moving on to more advanced math skills.
Beyond the basics in reading and math, state tests should be aligned to specific content areas. After all, America’s reliance on generic reading tests is distinct from the way that much of the world views skill development, and mounting evidence suggests there is no such thing as a transferrable reading comprehension skill. So, for state policymakers who want to ensure kids are learning important concepts, I favor specific end-of-course tests in math, English, science, and social studies. For this, the model should be more like AP or IB tests than the SAT. The tests should be closely aligned to the content, and the results should count for some meaningful portion of the student’s final course grade to ensure students and educators take them seriously.
This is a high-level vision, and state leaders could certainly adapt it to emphasize their particular priority areas. But state tests need a shake-up. New technology allows for rapid, individualized, adaptive testing systems. If policymakers shift their approach to testing systems and embrace the new possibilities, the next version of state tests could be faster, cheaper, and better.
