Call for Commentaries: Redesigning Assessment and Accountability

Special Topic: Redesigning Assessment and Accountability

Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA/AAPE) announces a call for written and video commentaries from educators, policymakers, and community members for a special issue about redesigning systems of assessment and accountability for meaningful student learning. The goal of this call for commentaries is to solicit opinions and examples of how performance assessments and “multiple measures” data dashboards might be used as part of state accountability systems, as per the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including practitioners, in the educational community writ large. These written and video commentaries will also center around two papers on recent developments in state and local policy: 1) Manuscript A, on the use of performance assessment to measure and further develop in students the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are essential for lifelong learning (available here); and 2) Manuscript B, on the use of “multiple measures” approaches to school accountability and data dashboards that incentivizes and supports states in developing a more holistic view of student and school success, while also providing transparency in the system, so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how to support student learning and continuous improvement (available here).

Submission Information: All materials should be submitted electronically through the EPAA website and follow the Journal’s submission guidelines: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/.  We will not consider manuscripts submitted for publication or published elsewhere.

To submit a written or video commentary for potential editorial review, please submit a one-page written proposal of the written or video commentary, in which the author(s) address how performance assessments and/or “multiple measures” data dashboards might be used as part of an accountability system that encourages more meaningful and learning opportunities for all children. Commentaries could address one or both of these issues. All proposals will be editorially reviewed, after which finalists will be invited to read the paper(s) and submit a final written (up to 1,500 words) or video commentary (up to 5 minutes). Final inclusion of commentaries in the special issue will depend on meeting reviewers’ expectations for clarity and quality (APA format required). More specifically, commentary proposals will be assessed by three criteria: 1) the significance of the issues addressed, 2) the degree to which the commentary brings to light the perspectives of key stakeholders in the educational community (i.e. community organizations, parents, policymakers), and 3) the quality and organization of writing.

Timeline

Deadline to submit one-page, written commentary proposals: October 1, 2017

Finalists invited to submit full written or video commentaries: November 1, 2017

Deadline to submit final written or video commentaries: January 1, 2018

Anticipated publication date: January 29, 2018

Guest Co-Editors: Soung Bae, Senior Research & Policy Analyst, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (soungb@stanford.edu), Jon Snyder, Executive Director, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (jdsnyder@stanford.edu), Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Research & Policy Fellow, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (stosich@stanford.edu)