By Lance Chambers

Why all the testing in schools lately? Students in schools across the country are seeing more and more assessments (tests) than ever before.

A main reason for these tests has to do with a federal movement called No Child Left Behind.

This movement, which has been in existence for a number of years, calls all schools to meet the challenge that every student will test proficient by the year 2014 on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) tests.

To make this happen, schools have bought into different things such as differentiation, response to intervention (RTI), and many different types of assessments.

At Jordan Middle School, we assess our students with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) local assessment two to three times a year, MCA tests in reading, language arts, math, and science in the spring, frequent AimsWeb (academic improvement monitoring system) assessments for remedial students and special programs, and this year the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test for eighth grade students.

These tests fall into two different categories - formative assessments and summative assessments.

Formative assessments are tests that are given so that schools know what adjustments and interventions are needed to help reach the students where they have the most needs.

Summative assessments are tests that are given to prove whether instruction or interventions have had good, little, or no effect in narrowing the achievement gap.

These tests are for the students to see their cumulative performance at certain points in time. They are often compared with district and state curriculum standards.

In Jordan Public Schools, we continually look at data to see where changes need to be made.

It is important, as well, to make sure that the assessments we are using meet the student and staff needs so that calculated changes can be made to benefit the students.

Each and every week, we offer staff members time to review, analyze, and discuss data.

At the middle school, we call this our Professional Learning Community time (PLCs).

Questions are posed such as: What do we want each student to learn? How will we know when each student has learned it? How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? What do we do with a student who already knows the material? Members therefore review summative data to identify problems of practice and use formative data to determine how to respond to those problems.

My purpose for including this in this week's article is to assure parents and community members that we do have data-driven decisions that are being made.

Teachers do many things before they attempt to simply teach all of the students in their different subjects.

The education, and the way we present the material, is thought-out, discussed with PLC team members, and frequently revised throughout the year.

Parents, we appreciate the extra time and effort you give to your children to help support the efforts here at school.