Fair and Justice-Oriented Assessment : Developing Teachers' Knowledge and Skills

Research and real-world cases reveal how classroom assessment can be reimagined with fairness and equity. Educators are guided to define clear learning goals, collect insightful evidence, and balance formative and summative strategies to foster improved outcomes for students in diverse settings.

In Fair and Justice-Oriented Assessment, Margaret Heritage and Caroline Wylie propose that the key to improving learning opportunities for all students lies in increasing educators' assessment literacy. Only by examining various assessment practices through a lens of fairness and equity can practitioners best judge their use and value and then develop strategies for implementation that truly elevate student learning in alignment with school and district standards and in ways that are fair and just.

To build better assessment literacy, Heritage and Wylie seek to strengthen professional knowledge of ambitious teaching and use of both formative and summative classroom assessment practices. They clearly describe the knowledge and skills teachers need to better orient classroom assessment practices toward more positive learning experiences for all students. Critically, they urge educators to establish substantive learning goals, attend to the ways of eliciting evidence of student learning towards those goals, and reflect on the evidence to take action that intends to advance learning.

This book features real-world examples of assessment practices across a range of contexts and content areas, grade levels, and student populations, and shows how assessment literacy competencies can be achieved at scale with support from school and district leaders. Fair and Justice-Oriented Assessment provides a research-based and yet practical perspective on classroom assessment and advocates for the use of equity-oriented curricular and ambitious teaching.