Through-Year Assessment Defined: How This Model Really Works
Educators across the country are talking about through-year assessment, and many states and districts have adopted the term. But what does through-year assessment actually mean? At New Meridian, we have spent the last few years building and testing a high-quality through-year assessment model. We have gathered input from scores of educators and piloted the system […]
Michael Horn: New Meridian Pilot Programs are Incredibly Exciting
https://youtu.be/E3MiaYtHNDg New Meridian CEO Arthur VanderVeen sat down with Michael Horn, host of The Future of Education podcast, to discuss the next generation of assessment in U.S. schools. The conversation began with an observation.    “Assessments often become synonymous with an autopsy in our education system,†said Michael Horn, an author and education consultant. “It’s just […]
We Just Lost 40% of Pre-Pandemic Gains – Our Students Deserve an Urgent Response
By Arthur VanderVeen, Chief Executive Officer of New Meridian You could hear the collective gasp from American educators when the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released post-pandemic testing results. While we have all experienced first-hand the disruption wrought by COVID-19, seeing students’ learning loss quantified in the form of declining scores was nothing […]
New Meridian Experts Present at NCSA
New Meridian was proud to sponsor the National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) in Atlanta late last month and to see several New Meridian experts presenting on stage. During the three-day event we were able to connect with other industry leaders, share our mission to advance equity in education, and participate in two symposia sessions. […]
The True Costs of Low-Quality Assessments
The difference between high-quality and low-quality assessment is both dramatic and consequential, and educators need to understand the systemic impact of quality—especially in today’s environment
Bringing Local Agency and Voice to Design Fair Assessments
A state’s academic learning standards not only define what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, they signal a society’s values. Part tradition, part research, part social construct, and part political process, they define what we collectively believe the next generation of students must know not only to succeed personally […]
The Equity Paradox
How do we weigh the challenges of testing this spring against the need to initiate a years-long recovery effort that will certainly require good data?
We Need State Testing Data to Address the COVID Slide
So many of the established routines of our shared civic life have been suspended. While we wait hopefully for a vaccine that appears to be just around the corner, new COVID cases are spiking, lockdowns continue, unemployment benefits are expiring, and most of our schools remain closed to in-person learning. Our lives feel suspended. And […]
Now More Than Ever, Science Education is Vital
Not long after the White House declared the pandemic a national emergency in March, hope could be found in laboratories all over the country. Operation Warp Speed brought government agencies and the nation’s top pharmaceutical companies together and provided billions of dollars for a massive push to develop a COVID-19 vaccine by January of 2021. […]