A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Assessment and testing are fundamental to any conception of a national standards system. Assessment and testing are the core tools to recognize the competencies of individuals and to promote improved hiring and placement practices. Assessments also are key career planning tools for individuals. Information derived from assessments can help determine the effectiveness of education and training programs.

Third party assessments are an essential part of any national assessment framework. Many of the most respected professions have well established national examinations that provide the model for credentials that are recognized across states. It is this third party assessment model that is envisioned in the STWOA and the NSSB legislation. At this point in history the third party assessments most sought after by the employer community take two forms. The first are the professional credentials often coupled with state licensure requirements. The second form addresses occupation specific skills. The sponsoring organization for the credential is important to most employers. Many want to have assurances that representatives of the industry or a industry connected professional society are in the lead in the management of the assessment system.

Most of the current public attention has been given to developing academically focused assessment services for the K-12 education system, as many would agree this is the base on which to build. Different types and levels of activity standards assessment are currently underway in all states so any national listing will not be absolutely accurate or up-to-date. All but one state has some form of minimum competency tests that are administered to students at certain grade levels. In most cases the consequences for failing the test do not exist. However, states are moving beyond minimum standards to higher ones. Many are doing this by using materials culled from national academic standards. All states have recently produced some form of content standards and 31 states have or are in the process of adopting some form of related performance standards. There are 22 states committed to some form of formal assessments based upon these emerging higher academic standards. However, these new types of assessments are still being phased in most states (CCSSO,1996). Eight states have established some form of differentiated diploma system linked to the standards, and 13 currently have or will have graduation exams based on 10th grade standards or above (AFT,1996).

It is difficult to determine from national information sources which states are beginning to include workplace readiness type of skills in their assessment systems; yet this is occurring. For example, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, and Oregon have explicitly included such skills in their content standards. Vocational testing is recognized as a required part of a state's overall assessment in three states, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee (CCSSO/NCREL,1996). However, this count may reflect definition dilemmas as other states, such as Ohio, require exit exams for all students in occupation specific programs. Oklahoma has a strong history of using on-demand assessments with students in their vocational programs at the high school also in their postsecondary programs of study.

The STWOA pushes assessment issues even further for the states by calling for the development of portable credentials. The concept of industry recognized portable credentials found its way into STWOA for the following reasons: 1) to connect the work-based learning with the school-based learning; 2) to build credibility with the employer community; and, 3) to help ensure the credentials are based on national standards that would be valued across state lines and across various institutions of higher education and companies within an economic sector. The movement of the workforce and the needs of the global economy do not allow any state to act alone in the awarding of credentials. That is not to say states do not have a central role in the development of a portable credential system because they clearly do. Most specifically they must determine the school-based assessment components of the effort. To date, no state has been able to develop a fully functioning portable credential strategy as required by the legislation. There are some pilot demonstrations underway, but they are in their infancy.¹⁰

An Assessment Framework

Ananda and Rabinowitz (1995) provide an "ideal model" for a certification system that begins at the middle school level with general career awareness training and moves along to occupation specific A key feature of this model is the relationship of the categories of standards described earlier -- core academic, generic workplace, and industry specific core, occupational family, and occupational-specific -- required for success in any given job or career. Figure 3 depicts the relationship among the proposed program levels, types of standards, assessment purposes, and certification levels.

	Type of Standard
Program Level	Academic	Generic Workplace	Industry Core	Occupational Family	Occupational Specific	Assessment Partners*	Certification Level
Occupational Specific PostSecondary Training Institution Industry Setting	X	X	X	X	X	Industry/Education	Job Entry-- Career Specialization
Grade 12	X	X	X	X	X	Education/Industry	Occupational Family
Grade 10	X	X	X			Education/Industry	CIM
Middle School	X	X				Education/Industry	None

* lead partner indicated by italics
Source: Rabinowitz and Ananda , Institute for Educational Leadership

This model recognizes that the assessment system needs to be based on age and stage appropriateness. Assessment processes must be flexible yet driven by commonly agreed upon goals by all the relevant public governing bodies and industry-based organizations. Goals can range from a relatively informal reporting of a candidate's current skills (to help design an individualized training program) through formal certification. While industry and education are partners in the development of assessments, at different times and levels, each one is in the lead. For example, when career awareness is underway in the middle school years, assessment would be part of the ongoing academic testing program. However, for industry and occupational specific assessment, industry should take the lead to ensure the portability of credentials across state lines.

Under this model, assessment and certification of occupation specific skills do not occur until after high school. This assumption may or may not be appropriate for all occupations and should be discussed among representatives of industry and the states. There is an assumption built into the model that the primary means of assessment related to occupational families or occupation specific skills should be on-demand.

No model is ever static and just as the definitions change over time due to experience and usage, so would any ideal model of an assessment system to blend the needs of both the public and private sectors. There are three key reasons for showing the model: 1) it can be used as technical tool for anyone charged with a responsibility for designing assessment systems; 2) for portable credentials to become a reality the model portrays the necessity for several key stakeholder groups to collaborate to generate even some semblance of a coherent assessment system that will be understood by students, workers, and employers; and, 3) to raise the subject of who pays. The latter two reasons are by far the most significant for the purpose of this white paper.

Improving the quality and value of any credentials will require states to work together and requires the NSSB to work with the states and industry networks within those states. Even though the federal government is not identified in the model it has a critical role to support the growth of such a system. The federal government is in the only position to provide the glue to make the system work.

States are already focusing on improving the academic assessment processes used. The Council of Chief State School Officers' (CCSSO) Assessment Center provides collaborative assessment support for the states in this area. Hopefully, all states, will soon be able to incorporate performance standards with their academic content standards. All need to pay substantial attention to the assessment of workplace basic skills. Developing strategies to have commonality of assessments across all the states regarding these core workplace basic skills would be the most advantageous for students and employers alike.

Developing better assessment service does not stop at the school house door. Assessment efforts within the second chance programs (e.g., job training and basic education programs) need to be re-tooled to incorporate standards-based materials. Students from these programs need to be prepared to take industry recognized credentialing tests. The state organization(s) responsible for oversight of these programs need to be engaged with their counterparts in the education agencies to be aware of and participate in the roll-out of more comprehensive assessment efforts geared toward the needs of the workplace. Also, the federal agencies with lead responsibilities for second chance programs should assist their networks of providers in the development of standards-based assessments.¹¹

The working draft of the NSSB's standards system calls for core credentials to be the backbone of their framework for each economic sector. The working definition of a core credential is to include the core knowledge and skills common to, and essential for, the entire sector. There is a desire for these core credentials to be awarded first before an individual would be eligible to be assessed for a particular concentration and only after these credentials were awarded would they have the opportunity to receive credentials in specialties. The working definition for a concentration area is to include knowledge and skills that cover a broad area within the sector. Such knowledge and skills would be more targeted than the core level but less specific than the specialty level. A specialty area is considered the most detailed component in the skill standards framework, targeting particular jobs or perhaps the needs of specialized firms (Federal Register,1996).

The NSSB has not yet developed assessment criteria so making any speculations regarding how an NSSB endorsed assessment strategy will become operational is not possible. However, the general outline does raise a number of financing questions. There is some skepticism on the part of several of the pilot projects that employers will be interested in fiscally supporting either the development of or find the business value in paying for core and concentration type credentials. This may or may not be the case but the doubts exist (Wills and Kaufmann,1997). Also, and perhaps most importantly, is the need to sort out the relationship between the responsibilities of the public education system for assessments of their students and that of a national voluntary skill standards partnership.

Who Pays?

An answer is not given to the question because it would be impossible to do so, but it cannot be ignored. The next best approach is sorting out some of the issues surrounding the question. The issue of who pays for the differing types of assessments is a significant one. The full scope and cost of creating the ideal model is not known but it is certain it is a costly endeavor. Ananda and Rabinowitz (1995) argue, and appropriately so, that students should not be expected to pay for assessments that are a part of a state sponsored assessment system used for graduation requirements. Given federal and state tight budgets and cost of supporting the development and administration of high quality assessments the means to finance such efforts often becomes a stumbling block. The call for the states to issue portable credentials in the STWOA adds to the challenge for the education system.

Many would consider the employer community an obvious candidate to turn to for possible support in the financing of new forms of workplace related assessment. Employers have often indicated interest in skill standards credentials for the very purpose of reducing the cost of recruitment. However, experience from the 22 pilot projects provides mixed messages regarding assessments. Acceptance of certification as an ultimate outcome received mixed reviews from industry primarily due to fears the certification would become mandatory due to government involvement. However, the projects that have gained consensus to support credentials have been those that have centered attention on specialty skills. (Fees for such assessments have been a primary income stream for all kinds of credentialing organizations and presumably will be the key flow of income for the NSSB recognized partnerships.)

This generates a substantial dilemma, in that it is not probable that states and local education and training institutions can reasonably expect to shift the full cost of assessments to the private sector. It is clear many employers bear a substantial financial burden in the testing of workers. Numerous examples exist where hundreds or even thousands of applicants must be tested in order for even a few applicants to pass a screening test. These test have a direct correlation to the job specific requirements of their own workplace and cannot easily be substituted without assurances that an adequate broad-based validation study has occurred.

By using the ideal model as a starting point it is possible to address some key financing issues in a manageable way. For example, assume that assessments for workplace basic skills (not the personal attributes¹²) would not be developed by each individual school district nor by each state. Also assume the cost for each NSSB recognized voluntary partnership to validate these cross-sectors skills, which do not change as rapidly as specific technical skills, is beyond the partnership's means (both technically and fiscally) and perhaps even interest. Then other more cost efficient ways must be found to develop assessment tools for the workplace basics skills.

The natural federal agency to take the lead in supporting such an effort would be the Department of Labor. This is for multiple reasons. Two obvious ones are its responsibilities for: 1) second chance programs; and 2) assisting job seekers and employers through the labor exchange services. Alone or in partnership with NSSB and other federal agencies (e.g., OVAE that supports CASAS) they could take the lead to support validation of workplace basic skills across all sectors on some type of multiple year schedule. They could own the resulting test(s) as they do now the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) or they could "certify" and/or partner with public and private sector firms to generate assessments.

Through collaboration of several stakeholder groups it should be possible to "unbundle" the assessment components (i.e. academic, workplace basics, and specialties) in ways that can make sense. A beginning point may well be bringing organizations together to develop some common strategies. There are some natural organizations that can help. For example, the CCSSO's Assessment Center, representatives of the Center for Education Statistics, the Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Education-funded research center on assessment, also their funded laboratory with the lead role in assessment, WestEd, the American Psychological Association, and other organizations with special expertise in assessment-related issues. One possibility for promoting such collaboration would be if the NSSB establishes an advisory panel of representatives from these organizations to promote the much needed coordination.

¹¹ OVAE has supported the work of the non-profit Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) for several years. CASAS is a learner-centered curriculum management, assessment and evaluation system that continuously upgrades its materials to reflect the changing requirements of the workplace. Many second chance programs use DofEd endorsed materials.

¹² Personal attributes are very difficult to document through on-demand assessments. These are better documented through other means such as portfolios, volunteer and work experience etc..

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