Teachers need to know. Parents need to know. Most of all, students need to know. We all need to know what skills students are learning, how they will be assessed, and what interventions will be provided for remediation or acceleration. Standards and benchmarks for assessments change, and the home-school communication about these critical measures holds the power to make or break student achievement as it's measured by state and district assessments.
Teachers, handed new standards and new assessments on a regular basis, need to plan for more than daily, weekly, and monthly assessments. In the current No Child Left Behind and teacher accountability climate, where teacher effectiveness and school accountability get measured by student performance on high-stakes assessments, teachers need time to become fluent with assessment tools that measure "effective instruction". While "teaching to the test" inhibits learning through wrote memorization, teachers fluent with assessment language and expectations can better equip their students to demonstrate their acuity on high-stakes tests.
Standards-based and assessment-measured education affects teachers' year, unit, standards, and weekly lesson planning. What if we went through an entire year of math instruction using words like "polygon" to describe shapes, only for students to learn that the assessment refers to geometric images as "figures" and in fact labels graphics with the abbreviation "fig."? Teachers need to know the language assessments use, as do students, and their parents.
Parents need to know what's being expected and measured as indicators of learning. Parents of first-graders need to know just how many words per minute their child is expected to read, yet teachers are still in the process of learning these expectations. Parents, teachers, and students who have regular communication about this information use team-building tools to elevate academic achievement for all learners. Imagine the learning possibilities consistent, up-to-date communication could open up for our students. Educated teachers, informed parents, and students who understand expectations can beat the odds, and perform well in the global climate of education evaluation.
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