Dive Brief:
- On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled its guidelines for the federal peer review process for new state tests.
- Review of state tests has been suspended since 2012 as the department underwent a lengthy overhaul of how to evaluate the new wave of state tests.
- That delay has made the review of new tests, which is required in the No Child Left Behind waiver process, a mystery for states looking to adopt new tests.
Dive Insight:
States with new tests will have to undergo review between now and May 2016. The review is intended to ensure all tests meet the federal requirement that they are high-quality, valid, reliable, and rigorous. The evidence states must submit includes everything from endorsements from local universities to the involvement of content matter experts in test creation.
The new guidelines offer states some flexibility and checkpoints on key issues like student data privacy and test participation. For example, states that use tests for a single year as a transition from old to new exams will not have to submit the temporary tests for review. But states also face a relatively short timeline for receiving their review, a detail that experts say favors consortia like PARCC or Smarter Balanced since the same pieces of evidence can be used across different states.
