“We test our students so we can make more appropriate decisions about how to educate them.” James Popham (2010)

The Florence City Schools (FCS) Student Assessment Department is responsible for the implementation of local and state testing programs. The primary goal of student assessment in FCS is to provide every student with the opportunity to demonstrate the skills they have learned and identify individual student needs. We also use the data from testing to guide curriculum decisions and inform our parents and our community about student success in our district. According to James Popham (2010), “We assess students in order to make better decisions about the curricular ends we should be pursuing, the way our instruction is working, and how successfully students have achieved our intended curricular aims.” Student assessments allow teachers to measure the effectiveness of their instruction by connecting student performance to specific learning objectives. When teachers analyze their students’ performance on assessments, they can determine mastery of academic standards and they will be able to determine learning gaps and plan effective strategies for closing those gaps. 

Popham J. (2010). Everything School Leaders Need to Know About Assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.