Driving Student Learning With Interim
Assessments at Covington High School
Districts and schools across the state have discovered over the
past several years that having teachers and academic leaders
develop interim assessments either at the school or district level can both
serve as professional development and provide useful data on student improvement.
At Covington High School, a SCORE Prize finalist in 2015 and previous SCORE Prize winner,
teachers spent the past year developing interim assessments based on the state standards for English
and math. The assessments are administered every 4.5 weeks and used to adjust both curriculum and
intervention for the next 4.5 weeks.
Covington’s assistant principal credits the creation of interim assessments as one of the drivers
of the school’s recent gains in both English and math. Teachers have a better sense of how well
students are progressing against the standards, and because the assessments are built using the
TNReady blueprints, they also have a better sense of how students understand the material for
the end-of-course assessments. Additionally, the deep content knowledge required to build the
assessments has enhanced teachers’ grasp of the standards, leading to better instruction. The
assessments are built into a data system that allows teachers to easily run reports on various
standards and to adjust instruction to reteach something that has not been understood.
recommended solutions to these challenges moving
forward.
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The Tennessee Department of Education
should implement the recommendations from the
task force with specific attention to:
• Creating High-Quality Assessment
Reports. The Tennessee Department of
Education should ensure reports from
TNReady provide students, parents, and
educators with the information they need
Education should seek input from students,
parents, teachers, principals, and district
leaders on draft assessment reports. These
reports should provide clear indicators of
student progress toward postsecondary
readiness throughout their educational
career.
• Ensuring Success on TechnologyBased Assessments. Local foundations,
communities, and business partners should
to support student learning and measure
provide support to districts to ensure they
student progress toward college and career
have access to adequate infrastructure and
readiness. As Tennessee transitions to
technical support to effectively implement
the TNReady assessment, it is essential to
technology-based assessments. As schools
ensure that reports from this assessment
and districts transition to computer-
provide parents and educators with accurate
based assessments, they must have the
information that drives shifts in instruction
support they need to effectively prepare
to better meet student needs. To ensure
students for success on technology-based
assessment reports meet the needs of all
assessments and administer computer-
stakeholders, the Tennessee Department of
based assessments in their school. The
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