How Evidence from the K12 Research for Equity Hub is Impacting Education Assessment and Accountability Policies and Practices
If you Google “US student achievement,” you will come across disheartening results: student achievement has continued to drop since 2019, and assessment scores for the lowest performing students are at historic lows. Two key ingredients to improving student achievement are: 1) effective, qualified teachers and 2) rigorous, engaging, standards-aligned, and meaningful content. More succinctly, this boils down to instruction and curriculum. The K-12 education assessment and accountability systems were designed to support teaching and learning for all students. The systems are supposed to accomplish this by measuring student learning (i.e., assessment scores) and sharing assessment results with teachers, students, parents, and communities to hold states, districts, and schools accountable for student achievement.
Assessment and Accountability Policy
Since the early 2000s, the federal government has required states to establish accountability systems as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). While these systems have evolved from the ESEA reauthorization in 2001 (known as No Child Left Behind) to 2015’s Every Student Succeeds Act, the systems have yet to address their many shortcomings: persistent achievement gaps; a narrow view of accountability; and time-consuming, costly, and high-stakes summative tests rarely used to inform improvements in teaching and learning.
Research to Inform and Innovate Policy
In search of alternative and innovative approaches to K12 education assessment and accountability, EduDream launched the K12 Research for Equity Hub to advance the policy dialogue at the local, state, and federal levels. With generous funding from the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, the Hub has funded 7 research projects across two Cycles (or cohorts) from 2022 to 2025. Earlier this month, the Hub released its Cycle 2 research. While it may take months or even years to see the full impact of this research from the Houston Education Research Consortium, Lyons Assessment Consulting, and the Center for Innovation in Education, the impact of Cycle 1 research is already evident and signals the importance of a deliberate focus on innovating and sustaining education assessment and accountability policies and practices.
Cycle 1 Research Advancing State Policy and Policy Dialogue
- A California statewide coalition used the Migration Policy Institute’s (MPI) research, Refining State Accountability Systems for English Learner Success, to testify before the California Board of Education and advocate for legislation that would ensure the language proficiency of the state’s youngest emerging bilingual students (ages birth to 5) is not evaluated with developmentally inappropriate assessments that could harm their academic and life trajectories. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill on June 14, 2024. MPI’s research examined schools’ expectations for English Learners’ growth in both language proficiency and academic content areas. The research findings offer potential refinements to accountability systems, such as the use of opportunity-to-learn indicators, to generate more actionable data to drive local decision-making and better gauge the impact of schools on English Learners’ academic development.
- In 2019, the Texas state legislature passed House Bill 3906, requiring the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to develop and pilot through-year assessments as a possible replacement for summative assessments. As Texas districts began piloting through-year assessment in the 2022-23 school year, Bellwether examined four states’ distinct approaches to these assessments, including Texas. In 2025, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 8, which requires TEA to replace the summative assessment with through-year assessments in the 2027-28 school year.
Cycle 1 Research Informing District Practices
- To help frame its work and priorities, a Texas Early College High School’s Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Taskforce dug deeply into Choice-filled Lives Network’s (CLN) research. In its research, CLN examines eight human-flourishing design principles, which are evidence-based environmental factors and experiences that promote student engagement, learning, and flourishing. These principles can provide state and district leaders with a foundation for cultivating a more equitable and inclusive educational assessment and accountability system. Following a close examination of the study and numerous discussions about the most salient findings, the SEL Task Force identified four design elements outlined in the research that felt especially relevant and proposed to address each in its SEL plan.
With so much already achieved, we look forward to revisiting the accomplishments of the Hub Cycle 2 research in the future! Improving student learning and closing achievement gaps is possible. There are more questions and innovations to test via research and policy to ensure sound technical assessments (i.e., fair, comparable, and aligned) that reduce the burden of time and cost, and increase data use to inform targeted supports, instruction, and learning conditions. With the right systems, supports, policies, and practices in place, all students can learn and thrive.
