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Alternative Assessment And Accountability: A Case Study Of Policy Reform And Teacher Practice At The District Level, Amy Lynn Abbott

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Deliberations on the topic of alternatives to standardized assessments spurred the 2014 Virginia General Assembly legislation (House Bill 930/Senate Bill 306) that removed five, end-of-year Virginia Standards of Learning tests from select elementary and middle school subjects and supplant them with alternative measures (Virginia Department of Education, 2014). In light of the reform, the purpose of this study was to develop a descriptive account of one large Virginia school district’s implementation of alternative, locally developed assessments designed as an intervention to enhance teaching and learning. Emphasis was on the impact of policy change in social studies practice to capture teachers’ …