An assessment manifesto worth our attention

Rick Stiggins' Assessment Manifesto is getting a lot of attention from Kentucky educators, and the attention is deserved.

In this document, the call for lean standards and for tests that provide detail on each student are the outer shell. On the inside is a vision of students who understand the goals they're working toward, know what progress they need to make, and learn each day that they can master those next steps and move forward. Trusting themselves and their teachers, those students are increasingly confident and successful.

Stiggins writes, "In other words, assessment practices that permit—even encourage—some students to give up on learning must be replaced by those that engender hope and sustained effort for all students." That's the sunlit, central, student-focused point that makes me sure this is an important report.

I plan to blog on some of the specific ideas in the coming weeks. For now, though, I recommend the ten-page full document to everyone. You can download it here.