Green Light for New Hampshire

Congratulations to New Hampshire! The U.S. Department of Education has approved New Hampshire to use performance-based assessments in four districts that have been part of PACE.PACE is developing:

• common performance tasks that have high technical quality,
• locally designed performance tasks with guidelines for ensuring high technical quality,
• regional scoring sessions and local district peer review audits to ensure sound accountability systems and high inter-rater reliability,
• a web-based bank of local and common performance tasks, and
• a regional support network for districts and schools.

NH will be using SBAC for some grade and the performance assessments for others. New Hampshire plans to expand PACE to eight districts next year.

This is an enormous step forward to building out the systems of assessments that emphasizes higher order skills by using performance assessments. More to come later!