Vol. 2 No. 2 (2019): Assessment and Evaluation in Education: Do Our Policies and Practices Promote Growth, Equity, and Justice?

Authors for this Spring 2019 issue of Allies for Education addressed the theme, “Assessment and Evaluation in Education: Do Our Policies and Practices Promote Growth, Equity, and Justice?” This is one of the most important questions we can ask in the field of education because of the simplest of realities: We assess and evaluate what we value.

Our understandings and decisions about assessment and evaluation are rooted in values that shape the most fundamental aspects of teaching and learning, such as what we think education is and what purposes it must serve; how accountability is understood and operationalized; whose authority, culture, history, and/or contributions count enough to be taught and included in measures of student achievement; what “student success” means; and whether all students have equal educational rights and equitable success opportunities. The authors below speak to these critical issues through their rich variety of perspectives in education.

We assess and evaluate what we value. Are growth, equity, and justice among our individual and collective social and educational values? We at A4E invite readers to use this lens while considering not only the works offered here, but also while examining assessment and evaluation policies and practices in the P12, higher education, and community education contexts that they inhabit.

Additional translations to Spanish and audio recordings of authors reading their works in this issue will be uploaded as they become available.