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Assessment Guidance

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Oklahoma recognizes that a robust assessment system is tied closely to students’ learning and teachers’ instructional practices by valuing and promoting local, classroom-based formative assessments that help make student learning visible. At the same time, that system should provide a strong summative assessment program that fits as a component within a multifaceted state, district and school accountability system. Oklahoma ESSA Plan (p 48)

The OSDE supports an assessment system by working with Oklahoma Educators and Stakeholders to:

Ensure that state and federally required annual summative assessments delivered through the Oklahoma School Testing Program (OSTP) are effective and meaningful to families, districts, educators, and members of the community
Develop Instructional resources to support local formative and interim assessments through the curriculum frameworks projects and assessment guidance toolkit
Build and deliver professional learning through face-to-face and web-based resources to support local assessment needs and interpretation of state assessment data

Assessment Literacy

The OSDE defines Assessment literacy as the set of beliefs, knowledge and practices about assessment that lead a teacher, administrator, policymaker or student to use assessment to improve student learning and achievement. Such literacy is essential as we move into ESSA where the focus is on student growth as they move through our K-12 systems.

Shifts in How We Think About Assessment Under ESSA

From	To
From one assessment on one day	A system where different types of assessments serve different purposes
Solely for Accountability	Teaching and Learning Tool
After Learning for a grade	Ongoing before, during, and after learning to guide learning
One measure condensed to produce a "Score"	Descriptive evidence from multiple measures to provide feedback and support growth
Adults "do" the Assessment to students	Adults and students are actively engaged in collecting evidence of learning and providing feedback