What Should be Learned from Learning Assessments?

Learning assessments have grown increasingly important as policy makers and other educational consumers (agencies, schools, communities, parents, individuals, etc.) have sought to understand what is (and isn’t) learned as a function of information inputs. Increasingly, ministers of education are no longer satisfied with who is attending school, but also how well what is being taught is learned, and perhaps how well the minister is doing relative to ministers in other countries. Even at the individual level, in both wealthy and poor countries, both parents and children want to know whether or not they will succeed in school, or in learning a second language, or be able to get a job with the skills that they have or might have. In sum, learning assessments have been around as long as parents have been trying to teach their children, and institutions have been trying to determine who is intellectually fit for a particular job. And, they are increasingly used as the globalized economy puts a bigger and bigger premium on what skills individuals possess.