The Assessment Bridge: Positive Ways to Link Tests to Learning, Standards, and Curriculum Improvement

"Just the kind of bridge we need to span the ideological wars and make schools work for teachers and their students."
Ann Lieberman
Senior Scholar, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Visiting Professor, Stanford University

"In her supremely well-written and useful book, Dr. Solomon has woven together historical perspective, research, and her own considerable experience to address reforming schools in the 21st Century.  After defining the problem (productive change), Dr. Solomon has examined ′old′ solutions and conceptualized new ones to create better schools for students."
Nancy Goldman, Director of Curriculum
Pearl River School District
Pearl River, NY

"Standards and implementation of the learning process go hand in hand. The Assessment Bridge makes us clearly aware of the present need for a bridge between the two so that standards may not create greater failure and the rejection of formal education by many children."
Matthew Foley, Pastor
Epiphany Roman Catholic Church

We must ensure that tests serve the needs of education―not force education to fulfill needs of test creators.

The Assessment Bridge is award-winning educator Pearl Solomon′s penetrating and cogent examination of today′s high-stakes standards-based testing movement, which seems to compromise effective teaching and learning rather than improve it. Committed teachers know the importance of student assessment as a guide to classroom instruction. Restoring assessment to its proper place in the curriculum is the goal of this clear-headed analysis. Chapters cover:

• The origins and history of the current testing movement
• How good tests guide teaching and learning
• How to balance standardized tests, curriculum standards, and critical local variables such as class size, socioeconomics, and teacher attitudes
• How to build bridges from test anxiety to improved student learning, teacher training, curriculum and instruction, and school administration and leadership
• How to recruit, train, and nurture a new generation of talented, committed, and effective teachers

Emphasizing the positive at all times, Solomon guides us toward creation of better schools where the best teachers and school leaders link tests to standards, curriculum, and improved student learning.

Pearl G. Solomon is professor emerita of teacher education at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, New York. She has served as a director and officer for professional organizations and as a consultant to many school districts, the New York State Education Department, and the United States Department of Education. Solomon is the recipient of a number of special awards from the state and community for her work in science, math, health, and career education.