Common Core Aligned Assessments: You Get What You Pay For?

Eighty-five percent of American students attend school in a state that has adopted the Common Core State Standards. As these states transition from adoption to implementation of the new standards, many are grappling with how best to assess whether students are learning the material contained in the Common Core. How expensive might the new Common Core tests be? And what is the role of costs in the political battles over the Common Core that are currently raging in many states?

On October 30, the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings released its report, Standardized Testing and the Common Core Standards — You Get What You Pay For?, that critically examines both the cost and quality aspects of the assessment choices states will face in the coming months and years. A presentation of the report’s findings by its author, Brookings Fellow Matthew M. Chingos, was followed by a panel discussion of state education leaders. Panelists, who represent a diverse group of states that approach student assessment from notably different perspectives, debated the relative merits of those approaches and discussed the questions and challenges they face in making assessment decisions.

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