Everything School Leaders Need to Know About Assessment

"Finally we have a book written on educational assessment that is easy to understand and keeps the reader engaged and focused on the topic. The author provides practical and useful information for both school administrators and classroom teachers."
—Kenneth Arndt, Superintendent
CUSD #300 Schools, Carpentersville, IL

"Popham asks thought-provoking questions and challenges the reader to follow through with staff."
—Marie Blum, Superintendent
Canaseraga Central School District, Canaseraga, NY

Educational assessment in a nutshell for busy school leaders!

W. James Popham, one of the most well-known and respected experts in educational assessment, discusses the key principles new and seasoned school leaders need to know about educational assessment to do their work effectively.

Readers will come away with crucial understandings that allow them to lead assessment of learning, meet accountability requirements, and communicate knowledgeably about accountability and test results with students, parents, the media, and the public. Using plain language, a witty and engaging writing style, and practical examples, Popham covers:

• Validity, reliability, and assessment bias
• The importance of formative assessment
• Assessing students with disabilities and English language learners
• Interpreting results of large-scale assessments
• Instructional sensitivity of accountability tests

Everything School Leaders Need to Know About Assessment is a concise, authoritative guide to a topic that all educational leaders must understand in these critical times.

W. James Popham, professor emeritus at University of California Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment, for example, was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies while serving as yearbook advisor, class sponsor, and unpaid tennis coach. That recompense meshed ideally with the quality of his coaching. Most of Dr. Popham′s teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of UCLA’s top 20 professors of the 20th century. (He notes that the 20th century was a full-length century, unlike the current abbreviated one.) In 1992, he took early retirement from UCLA upon learning that emeritus professors received free parking. Because at UCLA he was acutely aware of the perishability of professors who failed to publish, he spent his non-teaching hours affixing words to paper. The result: 30 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. Although not noted in his official vita, while at UCLA he also authored 1,426 grocery lists. His most recent books are Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know, 6th Ed. (2010) and Assessment for Educational Leaders (2006), Allyn & Bacon; The Truth About Testing (2001), Test Better, Teach Better (2003), Transformative Assessment (2008) and Instruction that Measures Up (2009) ASCD; America’s “Failing” Schools (2005) and Mastering Assessment (2006), Routledge; and Unlearned Lessons (2009) Harvard Education Press. He encourages purchase of these books because he regards their semi-annual royalties as psychologically reassuring. In 1978, Dr. Popham was elected to the presidency of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He was also the founding editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a quarterly journal published by AERA. A Fellow of the Association, he has attended each year′s AERA meeting since his first in 1958. He is inordinately compulsive. In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests’ answer keys. In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement. In 2006 he was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Association of Test Directors. In 2009, he was appointed to be a board member of the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Popham’s complete 44-page, single-spaced vita can be requested. It is really dull reading. School Leadership Briefing Interview