USED Awards $30 Million to States for Assessment Innovation

Last week the White House announced that the U.S. Department of Education awarded $30 million to ten states through the Competitive Grants for State Assessments (CGSA) program. The CGSA program provides funding to states working to improve their comprehensive assessment systems. This year’s competition included a priority for states seeking to try innovative approaches to assessment, with an emphasis on states exploring multiple measures of student learning. We applaud this focus on innovation, as it is well-aligned with Aurora’s state policy priority to transform systems of assessment.

We are energized by the work the selected states will pursue. Here are a few highlights from the CGSA Abstracts:

• Connecticut will develop competency-based interim assessments that focus on student choice and locally constructed response tasks and items (see note below). 
• Missouri will work with stakeholders to define mastery of the Missouri Learning Standards in a competency-based learning environment and work to create innovative reporting to support personalized learning. 
• Indiana will build on the Indiana Learning Evaluation and Assessment Readiness (ILEARN) Network as part of its through-year initiative to create a coherent system that connects teaching, learning, and assessment, generating actionable data that shapes targeted instruction at school and support at home to improve student academic achievement throughout the school year.
• Massachusetts will continue to build a system of assessments for science, with a focus on curriculum-embedded performance tasks for classroom formative use and aligned professional development for educators.  

While we are pleased to see this investment in transforming assessment systems, there is more the federal government can do to continue to foster assessment innovation. Twenty states applied for this most recent round of CGSA funding this year, and only ten applications were funded. The demand for opportunities to innovate is high but states desperately need resources to be able to pursue new systems of assessments that will benefit students. Aurora, along with a number of other organizations, released a report, Clearing the Path for Assessment Innovation: The Role of Federal Policy, which outlined recommendations for ways to support states as they both explore innovative practices and, ultimately, scale and sustain their work of improving assessments for all. Increasing funding for programs like CGSA, along with increasing flexibility in related areas like accountability as described in Aurora’s federal policy priorities, are critical for true systems transformation.

Congratulations to the states that were awarded funding, as well as those who applied but were not funded this round. We know that all 20 of these states will continue to find ways to make their learner-centered visions a reality. We look forward to learning from these states and sharing stories as they work to advance our collective goal of transforming assessment systems. 

Note: The Aurora Institute will be a contractor on this grant.

Learn More

• Aurora Institute’s 2024 Federal Policy Priorities
• Aurora Institute’s 2024 State Policy Priorities
• Innovating Towards Next Generation Accountability