I Personally Believe...

*NOTE: After reading the posted description for this assignment, I decided to write my personal beliefs regarding assessments prior to reading the chapter to see if my personally beliefs changed after reading the chapter. The following is my response prior to reading.

As an educator, I believe that there has to be some sort of measurable means to accurately assess students, teachers, and administrators performance. Within the direct scope of my control, I have the opportunity to create assessments that I administer to my students that vary in types/forms. The interpretation of the results are largely dependent on the purpose and what is addressed in the assessment.

As such, my district and school uses a standards-based report card. To support my grades (based on a rubric scale of 1-4), I need to produce assessments that reflect and accurately measure a student's growth and current level of performance. This is incredibly difficult in the sense that it is truly my interpretation of the assessment results that indicates my students' performance. No one challenges my grades, including parents, teachers, and administrators - at least thus far. I believe this is in much part due to the fact that I teach second grade and many of my grades are supported by observational anecdotes and informal observation. What I am saying is the use of assessment in my class, many times, takes the form of my interpretations of how well my students are performing and learning, informally through observation. (In my head, the words reliability and validity are screaming because I know the way I use assessments, or lack of at times, could be biased.)

Many of my students are given "testing modifications" to focus their attention on the task that I provide- this is may not include IEPs and 504 plans. For example, I allow one student with ADHD, who does not have testing modifications, to stand when taking a Math test because he is in a "better" environment geared towards his needs to focus on the task at hand. I want to set up students up for the greatest success. Also, I do vary modifications given depending on the purpose of the assessment or content area. I also vary the actual frequency I use these modifications with these students because they will eventually have to to take an assessment without the modifications I am providing.

In addition, when creating an assessment I ask myself questions, including but not exclusive to: What is the purpose for this assessment? What do I want to assess? Are the majority of my students ready, or should I wait to administer the assessment after further teaching/re-teaching? How will this assessment be useful for me before, during, and after my teaching? Is the test fair, accurate, biased (linguistic, environmental, ability, cultural, etc.), and will the results hopefully reflect student learning? Also important, and something I struggle with, is making sure I give the students feedback on their performance.

Professionally, in the classroom I tell my students about cheating and what it means. I am frank with them and indicate the seriousness of the offense. I believe this is a very important responsibility of mine. Ethically, I try to be as accommodating and fair as possible when creating, administering, and interpreting assessment results. My moral stance is encompassed in the following statement: I believe that every (assessment) decision that is made in school and the classroom should be in the best interests of all students and their learning and safety.
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Here is my response after reading chapter 5:

I believe it is my professional responsibility to craft high quality (valid and reliable) assessments, and use those results to make informed decisions in my teaching. I believe my assessments must be fair, accurate in content I have covered, unbiased (as much as possible), and administered in a manner that is fair, consistent, and provides modifications for students with disabilities. The scoring and interpretations of my assessments must also be valid and reliable, so that I can make the best instructional decisions for my students and provide accurate feedback to my students on their current level of performance/growth. Overall, my professional responsibilities and decisions are based on the the best interests of my students.

Nitko and Brookhart do a decent job at outlining and describing the professional responsibilities a teacher has related to assessment. I agree teachers have the responsibility to create high quality assessments, ones that are reliable and valid. Furthermore, I agree that there are many poor-quality assessment materials that have been published (88). It is the responsibility of the teacher to make a judgment on the validity, reliability, and appropriateness of the assessment(s), if the teacher is going to use them in the classroom. Often, I see teacher give an assessment that they believe is "authentic" and connects learning to "real-life" situations that are invalid and unreliable because the assessment does not address the content that the teacher taught. This makes the assessment invalid, unreliable, and inappropriate.

Nitko and Brookart outline seven points of information teachers have when administering assessments (88). I agree with all their points, except for "the content and abilities that will be assessed" (88). They are unclear to the degree of explicitness and in what manner a teacher should do this. For example, a teacher could literary show the test to students, or they could provide examples from the test as "practice" during their instruction. I have seen this. I believe needs to be more clearly defined, or at least teachers need to be held accountable for this type of disclosure of an assessment. I have seen this, especially during high-stakes testing. For example, I saw a teacher basically "give" an answer to a student during a sixth grade NYS Math Regents exam in my own classroom. I could not believe it. I was torn with my professional responsibility between talking with this person and speaking with my administrator. The issue is mentioned on page 90, but the reality of the situation is some teachers' neglect their ethical responsibilities when administering a test.

Within the teacher's scope of responsibilities to administer assessments, I agree on accommodating students with disabilities. The major criticism for providing students with disabilities is that these students are given an unfair advantage. On the other hand, I agree with Nikto and Brookhart that modifications are provided to "level the playing field" as the tests results are actually more valid and reliable because the students are better able to demonstrate their learning, as they can focus more on the assessment (89). In other words if you look at the student as an individual and provide the best possible accommodations, test results will reflect real student learning. I provide accommodations for certain students with disabilities, as well as others who have not been classified or identified with a disability if I believe it will help the student focus on the assessment. I believe this is my responsibility because I want the results to be as valid and reliable as possible, so I can make the best informed decisions in my instruction.

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that accommodations for students with disabilities is often overlooked. I recently had a student classified in my room and the student was granted seven different testing accommodations. The district and law states that the accommodations should go in effect immediately, however, he does not receive any of them because it is so close to the end of the school year and "it don't matter" as he will get them next school year in his new placement. I was frustrated by this because I have been providing accommodations all year long and used them as evidence to support his classification and new placement. Since the Committee on Special Education (CSE) obviously agreed and placed him next year, why does he not get the test accommodations this year- especially since the law states it? Of course, we now have the second grade "achievement" tests like the Terra Nova coming up and he probably will not receive accommodations, unless someone does something. It is my responsibility to do something, and I will.

Under the several responsibilities teachers have when interpreting and using assessment results, I agree that teachers should "...help students and parents properly interpret the assessment results" (92). It is the teacher's responsibility to put assessment results in a context that is free of educational jargon and communicate to students and parents results using more common language or something that is "relate-able" for parents. Parents/Guardians need to be informed of their child's progress and performance. However, I believe the reality of the situation in my classroom is that parents/guardians can still have a misunderstanding as to the achievement/performance level of their child because they might not see the overall picture of their child's performance, achievenment, growth, behavior, social and emotional development, etc. All of these and other contributing factors are the teacher's responsibility to relay to parents. This is when it is important to have an already established professional relastionship of trust between the student, parent/guardian, and teacher. This point I believe is arguably not emphasized in the chapter.

Moreover, it is my responsibility as a teacher to create, administer, and interpret assessments that yield valid and reliable results. These results can then be used to make informed instructional decisions in the classroom, in order to facilitate a positive and trusting learning environment. Overall, Nitko and Brookhart present teachers moral and ethical responsibilites concerning assessments in the classroom in an appropriate and fairly organized manner. It is not an all inclusive list, nor do I believe one could be made, as a teacher's professional responsibilities in assessment is constantly changing. Nonetheless, Nitko and Brookhart have tried to address the foundational guiding principles for teacher's responsibilities in assessment.