"Purposeful Assessment" is a practical tool for school administrators. Using the Miller Guidance Assessment Hierarchy, administrators are given the rationale for choosing assessments and organizing them by purpose. The Assessment Hierarchy clearly identifies gaps and overlaps in assessment practices. The result is an efficient assessment plan that saves precious district resources and minimizes the impact on instruction.

1. A New Methodology for Public Education
Purposeful Assessment
Copyright MM 2009

2. Do you want to organize your
assessments but you don’t know how?

3. Assessments are chosen to fulfill a need;
to answer a question.
Needed by whom, you ask?

4. Information is needed for decision making by:
0 Parents
0 Teachers
0 Grade level teams
0 Principals
0 District administration
0 State education officials and
0 the US Department of Education

5. It is a fine line
Your assessment plan needs to be efficient!
Data is needed to
insure that all students
receive appropriate
instruction throughout
their education
However, too much
assessment takes away
from instructional
minutes and can
negatively impact
student growth

6. Tests are organized according to
purpose.
So, use tests that serve multiple
purposes.

7. What tests can be used for more
than one purpose, you ask?
Let’s start by describing the
purposes that assessments serve.

8. Classroom assessments – formative
and summative – mastery
measurement
Are the students learning the material I am
currently teaching and what changes can I
make to increase their learning?
How much of what was taught in the
lesson/unit/course did the students learn?
Universal Screening and Progress Monitoring
General Outcome Measurement
As a result of the program
my students are receiving,
do the indicators suggest
that they are on the path
to becoming college and
career ready? What
changes can I make in my
program to improve
student performance?
Program evaluation
High Stakes Tests - summative
Have my students
met the state
criteria for
proficiency?
Diagnostic Assessment for some students
Why is this
student(s) failing
to make
progress in this
program?
Assessments in Education
Miller Guidance, Inc.

9. The Assessment Hierarchy
• There are two sections
Assessments given to:
• all students
• students who are at risk
• Assessment Hierarchies are constructed
for grade levels and skill areas. They are
clustered according to the curriculum
that they represent. For example, if a
district uses a reading curriculum for K-
6 and a language arts curriculum for 7-
8, the Assessment Hierarchies would
mirror this configuration. However, if
grades 6-8 use a language arts
curriculum, then the reading
Hierarchies would cluster K-5 and 6-8.
• Students who are at risk are defined by
the universal screening tool. (Below the
25th percentile using a standards based
cut score)

10. The Assessment Hierarchy
• Some diagnostic tests are given to all
students; students who are at risk are
given additional diagnostics, if needed
• The rigor of diagnostic testing matches
the severity of need. So students scoring
below the 10th percentile are given a
more rigorous battery of diagnostics
than students between the 10th and the
25th percentiles
• If the teacher or interventionist knows
what instructional focus the student
needs, there is no reason to administer
diagnostics
• Progress monitoring is conducted with
all students receiving supplemental
support
• The frequency with which progress
monitoring data is collected is relative
to the severity of need

11. Some Underlying Premises:
• Universal screening identifies students
at risk; does not analyze why
• Program supports are designed for
students scoring at risk on the universal
screener
• The specific supplemental supports that
these students receive is determined by
diagnostic assessments. Common
formative and formative assessments are
diagnostic but generally are more closely
aligned to the student’s curriculum
• Different screeners exist for different
target skills. Align your screening tool to
the skills that are important for that age
or grade
• Universal screeners are brief and
reliable indicators of a larger body of
skills. They don’t test everything but
they do test important things

12. Some Underlying Premises
(Continued):
• Diagnostic assessments take longer to
administer and score. Because they tell us
what a student needs, they are constructed
to have many production-type items
• Diagnostic tests can also be summative.
They are used for program eligibility and
evaluation purposes
• Program evaluation tools use standards
based criteria and are in essence “progress
monitoring” for the entire population
• Individual progress monitoring tools align
to the universal screener since the universal
screener is the tool that determined risk.
Local norms are often used as a criterion on
these measures
• All students are given some diagnostic tests
but school resources can be conserved if
additional diagnostic tests are only given to
students who are at risk and for whom the
teachers need information on instructional
focus

13. A Basic Reading Skills Example
Grades 1-5
-State Test
-R-CBM
-Reading series
theme tests
-Reading
Curriculum Based
Measurement
(R-CBM)
-Reading series
theme tests
-Curriculum
based evaluation
-Intervention
assessment
-Curriculum based
evaluation
-Intervention assessment
-Diag Reading Assess 2
(DRA-2)
-Texas Primary Reading
Inventory
-Reading
Curriculum
Based
Measurement
(R-CBM)
-Reading
Curriculum
Based
Measurement
(R-CBM)

14. A College and Career Ready Example
High School
-State Test
-Early Warning
System (EWS)
-EPAS/Work Keys
-Early
Warning
System (EWS)
-EPAS
-Work Keys
-Review records
-Interview
parents, teachers,
student
-Observe student
-EWS
-Intervention
measurement
plan
-Review records
-Interview
parents, teachers,
student
-Observe student
-Test basic skills
-EWS
-Intervention
measurement
plan

15. The Steps to an Aligned
Assessment Plan.
1. Inventory the assessments used by staff. Include ELL and
special education assessments. Also, ask general
education teachers to list the tools that they use to gauge
student learning, no matter how informal.
2. Compile a list and note which assessments are required
by the district or state.
3. Classify each assessment according to purpose
(Universal screening, Diagnostic, Progress monitoring,
Program evaluation)

16. The Steps to an Aligned
Assessment Plan.
4. Decide which Assessment Hierarchies you will use (K-5
Reading, K-5 Math, 6-8 Reading etc.)
5. Place the assessments that you are currently using on the
appropriate Hierarchy
6. Note where there are gaps and overlaps
7. Formulate a plan for eliminating overlapping
assessments and acquiring assessments to fill in gaps

17. For more practical resources visit
www.millerguidance.com