Investing in benchmark assessments is a costly, time-intensive undertaking. A written district or school accountability plan can help your school or district reach goals and save time. At a minimum, we suggest that your plan include the purposes of the benchmark assessments, individual responsibilities, reporting, data use, professional development, resources, and evaluation. A professional learning community, data expert, teacher leader, or accountability officer may be tasked with the effort of developing a plan.   

Click here to see an example plan for benchmark assessment use.

Whether an organization purchases a program to deliver benchmark assessment data or develops their own tool, it is important that data are quickly and easily available to all stakeholders. Clear rules should be established and communicated widely regarding access to data (who, when, how, and for what purpose).  Guidelines should also be established to protect confidentiality and to ensure users have access to the data they need without compromising confidentiality or the data system.

Schools and districts can do much to encourage the use of data from benchmark assessments by providing high-quality, ongoing professional development to educators. Teachers, school, and district personnel require assistance in building their technical skills to access, organize, and interpret benchmark assessment data. Professional development should include content and pedagogical skills that help teachers differentiate instruction and revise instructional strategies and approaches based on data.

Districts and schools should carefully build time into their calendars to make effective use of benchmark data. Consider the following needs for learning:

• Data users, including assessment and content experts, need time to adequately analyze the data in ways that are both meaningful to their context and robust in terms of the analyses.
• Districts and schools also need time to adequately interpret the data if they are to make productive use of benchmark assessment data and plan appropriate next steps.  
• Teachers need time for instructional planning to address skills and concepts identified on the assessment as requiring additional work and attention. Time is also needed to plan appropriate responses to benchmark assessment results.

There is little value in pinpointing gaps in student understanding if the pace of the district curriculum mandates that teachers forge ahead to the next topic, regardless of student performance and needs.

Good benchmark assessments are one component of a quality comprehensive assessment system.  A comprehensive system should be coherent and provide a continuous stream of information to guide and improve student learning. For benchmark assessments to function well in an assessment system, they must be purposively designed or selected and used to serve specific purposes. Educators and policy-makers must understand in advance the intended purpose(s) of benchmark assessments, and more importantly, what these assessments can and cannot do.  The multiple purposes are addressed below:

• First, for benchmark assessments to communicate expectations for learning, they must be carefully selected and designed to reflect the kind of learning that matters to all stakeholders.
• Second, for benchmark assessments to be used to plan and improve instruction, they must be closely aligned with the curriculum.  Further, to guide instruction effectively, they must generate results on a timely basis, with adequate professional development and resources dedicated to understanding the data and how to support student learning.
• Third, if benchmark assessments are used to monitor and evaluate schools, instructional programs, or teaching approaches, they need to be selected or designed to reflect the instructional practices and strategies in use for results to be helpful.
• Fourth, for benchmark assessments to serve predictive purposes they must be closely aligned with learning goals.  They should provide timely information to help guide the allocation of resources (time, materials, personnel and programs) to support students who need additional assistance and those students who may benefit from extended learning opportunities. 
• Finally, careful consideration of the technical quality of benchmark assessments is also critical if the data are to provide valid, reliable information that is free from bias.

Benchmark assessments, if selected and used well, can provide valid and reliable information about teaching and learning in an organization, and strengthen student achievement and learning