Public Schools and Student Assessment

Public schools have come under the gun in the past decade or more because of a national emphasis placed on student education that ensures students, who graduate from high school, are prepared to effectively participate as contributing citizens. This has not been the case in the past as many students graduated, or dropped out of public school programs, unable to read and do basic math. In order for public schools to measure whether the students they graduate are ready to participate as contributing citizens, new education assessment processes have been developed.

Public Schools and Student Assessment: Portfolio Assessment

A portfolio is an education assessment technique that is designed to display actual education artifacts as evidence of learned skills and concepts. A portfolio, then, is basically a collection of student work. It can contain spelling tests, art, math worksheet, videos, photographs etc. A public school can determine what it's education portfolio will be like. It can contain artifacts from one class or from many depending on the public school philosophy.

Public Schools and Student Assessment: Portfolio Assessment Questions

When a public school is determining what their education portfolio assessment will look like, there are several things to consider such as: 1) how will public school teachers use the portfolio to guide evaluation of education, 2) how will public school personnel use the portfolio to highlight information about education progress for parents, 3) what education artifacts are appropriate for inclusion in a portfolio and 4) how will portfolio artifacts be used to determine grades.

Public Schools and Student Assessment: Portfolio Assessment Parents

Public schools who have implemented a portfolio assessment process find that it is an effective technique to use for parent communication. Student achievement is easily documented for helping parents, during parent teacher conferences, to understand what their child is doing. Not only do parents see their child's grade, they also have evidence of why that grade was earned through the portfolio assessment process. Public schools who have developed grading guides for their portfolio assessment process are better able to ensure parents that their child was evaluated in a fair and objective manner. One benefit of public schools using portfolio assessment is that parents have a keepsake of their child's education and development over time.

Public Schools and Student Assessment: Learning Process

Portfolio assessment is great in that it highlights the learning process students followed to learn a new concept or skill. Public schools who planned their portfolio process to show small steps of growth are able to see just where a student is in the learning process and can use this information to plan effective individualized learning strategies.

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