Integrating Performance Assessments Across a PK-20 Continuum : A Locally Developed Collaboration

A response to Stosich et al.’s (2018) article reviewing ways in which states have taken up performance assessments, this commentary seeks to extend the focus and use of performance assessments to preservice teacher education. As such, the authors describe Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 26 No. 14 SPECIAL ISSUE 2 statewide initiatives in New Hampshire that are working to integrate performance assessments along a PK – 20 continuum by articulating how Stosich et al.’s key points of educator capacity, context, and assessments for and of learning are developing in one state. This commentary highlights key contextual factors for the lasting implementation of the performance assessments as well as raises critical new challenges and opportunities for understanding this tool as an assessment for and of learning.


Integrating Performance Assessments Across a PK-20 Continuum: A Locally Developed Collaboration
In the article, "How Do States Integrate Performance Assessment in Their Systems of Assessment, " Stosich, Snyder, and Wilczak (2018) contribute an important review of PK-12 statelevel policies and practices at a time when performance assessments are entering a new stage of maturity within the national discourse on systems of educational accountability.Their focus on the actions of key stakeholders across multiple states to implement and/or support performance assessments in PK-12 schools, regardless of the catalysts that prompted such actions, reveal four "common but distinct" (p.7) strategies for incorporating those assessments into systems of accountability ranging from classroom-specific purposes to federal testing requirements.We highlight three broadly applicable points that extend across this analysis of these four approaches, and then extend our commentary to invite consideration of how their analytical framework might be expanded.
The first point, and of particular significance within a context of contested policies around use of performance assessments in the service of classroom purposes as well as for broader consequential aims (e.g., as part of statewide assessment systems), stems from Stosich et al.'s repeated finding pertaining to the need to build the capacity of educators to use performance assessments in practice.Second, amidst ongoing efforts to highlight potential educative benefits associated with using performance assessments, the authors direct attention to the challenging aim of designing tools that act as assessments of learning as well as assessments for learning.Third, reflecting the fundamental premise that context matters, Stosich and colleagues clearly describe how performance assessments can take shape in different ways and in response to varied prompts or pressures.This sets the stage for their articulation of a "multilayered system of assessment practices" that is "influenced by actors at all levels of the educational system" (2018, p. 19), including decision-makers at the school, district or network, state, and federal level.
As we consider the compelling need identified by Stosich and colleagues (2018) to build educator capacity, we believe the findings underscore the need to promote a higher education voice within this ecosystem, operating with these other decision-makers through a lens of shared responsibility that incorporates a continuum of PK-20, and not simply a PK-12, perspectives.The inclusion of higher education teacher educators in the complex, multi-layered assessment system has the potential to promote mutual responsibility (Cochran-Smith, 2016;Sahlberg, 2010), characterized by collaboration across multiple policy-making levels, in which multiple stakeholders operate with a shared and co-created vision.A performance assessment at the PK-12 level, therefore, is enhanced when there are performance assessments as part of teacher preparation and vice versa.Creating a broad system of performance assessments across a PK-20 continuum can serve to raise questions, increase comfortability, and deepen respect around the nature and use of these assessments.Such an environment of mutual responsibility is also characterized by open dialogue that enhances trust across all stake holders and supports continuity in the development and implementation of performance assessments.Educator capacity to take up and ultimately realize the full, "beneficial use of performance assessments" (Stosich et al., 2018, p. 19) that such a system has to offer for student learning is attended to, augmented through, and embedded in a culture and context of inquiry.
As an example, there have been multiple parallel efforts in New Hampshire to support the development and implementation of performance assessments along a PK-20 continuum.In their article, Stosich et al. (2018) highlight New Hampshire's Performance Assessment of Competency Education (PACE) as a performance assessment that is locally developed by educators and used as part of federal accountability reporting requirements.Here we highlight other efforts across the state to build educator capacity including the adoption of a teacher candidate performance assessment in higher education, and joint efforts between PK-12 educators, university faculty, and state policy makers to support a PK-20 continuum.
In 2013, a consortium of teacher educators across all institutions of higher education in New Hampshire adopted the New Hampshire Teacher Candidate Assessment of Performance (NH TCAP) as a performance assessment to support teacher candidate learning and assess readiness to teach.Both PACE and the NH TCAP are locally developed performance assessments, reflecting the culture of a state that values such local influence, and allows, as Stosich and colleagues discuss, the historical, political, and educational factors that are important to the New Hampshire contexts to be considered.The development of the NH TCAP was influenced by a shift in the national discourse of teacher preparation to include performance assessments.Members of the consortium adapted an existing teacher candidate performance assessment (i.e., Performance Assessment for California Teachers, Pecheone & Chung, 2006) for the state context and came to agreement around key implementation issues such as facilitation of the Teacher Performance Assessment with teacher candidates; scorer training; instructor involvement and assistance; and the consequential nature of the assessment.Specifically, in this process, the consortium explicitly addressed key components of each of the institutions, the policy context of the state, and ways in which their joint efforts can cultivate the space for conversations around preservice teacher learning, assessment, and accountability.
Drawing on and inspired by examples of other initiatives around teacher performance assessments taking place across the country, the NH TCAP aspires to strike a balance between assessment of and assessment for learning.As with assessments that Stosich et al. highlight exist at the PK-12 level, the NH TCAP seeks to provide opportunities for deep and meaningful learning within higher education.In contrast to other teacher candidate performance assessments across the country (Reagan, Schram, McCurdy, Chang & Evans, 2016), the NH TCAP is housed at the institutional level and is one of multiple measures that determine readiness to teach as determined by the institutions.As such, it has the capacity to continue evolving as teacher educators collect and analyze data about the efficacies and challenges faced by teacher candidates, cooperating teachers, and university faculty.In this way, it serves as a tool for learning at multiple levels.As Stosich et al. comment on similar efforts at the PK-12 level, this approach enabled teacher educators to develop a system of assessment that incorporates locally-developed assessments to "encourage more meaningful learning opportunities for [teacher candidates] by creating cohesion across curriculum, instruction, and assessment" (2018, p. 18).The NH TCAP serves as the vehicle by which teacher educators can engage in rich conversations around effective practice within and across institutions.Furthermore, as a performance assessment, the NH TCAP serves as a practical example for preservice teacher candidates to explore the potential of performance assessments through the process of responding to prompts and unpacking and understanding rubrics, as well as experiencing the process themselves.
The NH TCAP represents one of multiple initiatives across the state to design and implement performance assessments and promote coherence across levels and layers of education in the state.Other state-level initiatives include strengthening of PK-20 partnerships through annual summits of state-level policy makers, district-and school-based practitioners, and teacher education faculty.These initiatives also fundamentally share the belief that "creating a multilayered system of assessment practices can provide more coherent or fragmented support for performance assessments" (Stosich et al., 2018, p. 19).A context of innovation is necessarily supported by the buy-in from all stakeholders.While there is work to be done, these initiatives are one step towards tighter integration of the implementation of performance assessments.Such a network of PK-20 partnerships and associated supporters could intimately contribute to a context that gives rise to reflection about the relationships among curriculum, instruction, and assessment across the full spectrum of student learning.These parallel initiatives of the NH TCAP and PK-20 partnerships are also creating a safe space for embracing a more critical look at not only the benefits but the factors (ie.educator capacity, financial resources) potentially limiting the full realization of performance assessments Over the past decade, New Hampshire policy makers, teacher educators, and school partners have worked deliberately and thoughtfully to conceptualize a learning and assessment system that developed from and encourages the shared values of this community: strong local control where the voices from multiple engaged stakeholders are encouraged and considered.The process for the development of such performance assessments was slow at times because it was recognized by all that careful attention needed to be paid to the needs and identities of all members in the ecosystem.These conversations included deep attention to respective histories, shared and different values, as well as shared and divergent trajectories.Ultimately the critical component and binding thread for the New Hampshire context was the recognition of and commitment to the belief that the learning of New Hampshire's PK-12 students is deeply tied to the preparation of its teachers.New Hampshire's example extends Stosich and colleagues' review of emerging PK-12 practices around performance assessment to teacher preparation demonstrating a cohesive and sustaining statewide effort in order to realize fully learning opportunities of these assessments for students and teachers.

Thomas Schram
University of New Hampshire tom.schram@unh.eduTom Schram is Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Educator Preparation at the University of New Hampshire, where he coordinates master's-level credentialing programs in teacher education, special education, early childhood education, and counseling.He is a founding member and Vice President of the New Hampshire IHE Network, a nonprofit consortium comprised of all the higher education educator preparation programs in the state.He has authored books on qualitative research design, served as a research consultant for the Teachers for a New Era (TNE) evidence team at Boston College, and was the lead qualitative researcher of a nationwide study on reform in mathematics education and the NCTM Standards.

About the Guest Editors
Southern New Hampshire University a.rogers@snhu.eduAudrey Rogers is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH.She teaches courses in educational techn ology, literacy, secondary methods, and history.She is a local and national presenter and has authored several Jackdaw Primary Source Kits, Cooperative Learning Basics, and numerous articles.Certified in social studies and as a technology integrator, she taught social studies at Nashua High School from 1989-2001.She was a founding member of NH READS -Reading Excellence across Disciplines and lead Scholar for the development of a web-based curriculum at the Fort at No. 4/Living History Museum.She directed a grant from the Education Commission of States on increasing civic engagement in New Hampshire.She received her B.A in History from Tufts University.She holds a Master's in History from the University of NH/Durham and a Master's in Education from the University of Massachusetts/Lowell.She holds an Ed.D. in Leadership and Learning from Rivier University.Her current research focuses on technology and cultural competence in educators.

Elizabeth Leisy Stosich Fordham
University estosich@fordham.eduElizabeth Leisy Stosich is an Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy at Fordham University.Previously, she was a Research and Policy Fellow at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.Her research interests include education policy, assessment and accountability, school and district leadership, school improvement, and teachers' professional learning.Senior Learning Specialist and UDL Innovation Studio Manager at the Schwab Learning Center at Stanford University.Formerly, she was a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.Her research interests focus on school accountability, student engagement, and designing learning environments that appreciate and support learner variability.Jon Snyder is the Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE).His research interests include teacher learning, conditions that support teacher learning, and the relationships between teacher and student learning.