Introduction
The chapter introduces by elaborating on the mechanisms and strategies that federal and state governments have installed to ensure that they are able to gauge the quality of education that students receive.
With changing educational syllabuses, competition, emergence of generation Y population and globalization, there has been the need to change the assessment method adopted in schools.
The assessment system operation
The state and federal government has established some measures that can be used to assess the performance of students, they are aimed at having continuous assessment of the student as well as gauging them against global educational standards.
From a general perspective, assessment can be classified as internally formulated assessment tests and external assessments aimed at rating the child against global and other external standards.
Whichever the approach the main reason is to improve the quality of education in the system.
Barometer and lever of reforms
The chapter is of the opinion that students have their main assessment done by their tutors through continuous assessments and tests monitored by teachers and tutors, the main reason for this is for teachers to gauge their rate of delivery.
When the assessments are done, the main agenda that aimed at is to advise and offer a wide review to tutors on the level and mode of delivery they are able to attain among their children.
Extensive Educational Assessment
According to the chapter, this is more so a scientific assessment method where the student and the tutor can tell if and how much students have achieved.
With such an approach, they are able to advise the state on the quality of curriculum and syllabus they have developed.
The system has been developed with time and adjustments made to make it more applicable and effective in modern education systems. Every stage has some adjustments that are made to make the system more applicable and effective in its system of operations. Despite the system having developed and favored by situations, it has some shortcomings.
The system has been blamed for favoring gender differences among students and sometimes is not able to differentiate the needs of people of different races, gender, nationality, or orientation; such efforts make the systems fail the test of time of comparing education curriculum efficiencies among different nations.
Federal intervention policies
With the stated issues that face the externally mandated assessment, the federal and state government has come up with number of programs that can be implemented to save the situation, they include inclusion education system, online assessment methodology, and No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
The basic goal that the system want to attain is that the quality of education in the country is high and there are measures that can be implemented to improve the current state.
Reference
Linn, M. &Miller, D.(2005). Measurement and assessment in teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.