State Power Ranking Spring 2021 Tracker

As the pandemic begins to recede and more schools reopen fully for in-person learning, trends are emerging in the topic of student assessment – and whether states are committed to measuring student progress after a year of disruptions or have declined to place the collection and analysis of learning data as a top priority. Testing 1-2-3’s Dale Chu, therefore, has kicked off a new series of State Assessment Power Rankings to dive deeper into state plans to measure learning and – hopefully – use resulting data as part of pandemic recovery.

The assessment power rankings use a four-point scale (1-4), which, taken together, help provide the equity guardrails necessary to ensure the performance of historically marginalized student groups isn’t swept under the rug. States can receive credit—with a maximum score of 16 points—for adhering to each of the following principles: Opportunity to demonstrate learning of all students, Comparability, Effective Communication, and Timing and Urgency. For more information on Chu’s analysis, visit the Testing 1-2-3 blog here.