Student Assessment
Alice Carlson uses a variety of approaches to assess student progress, including formal testing, conferences, written reports, and portfolios. Formal testing includes the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), the Stanford 10, the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Text (NNAT), and the Texas Primary Reading Index (TPRI). Conferences with parents and students are held throughout the school year. Written reports include a quarterly standards-based assessment report and brief, mid-period progress reports for students who are not demonstrating appropriate progress. Portfolios of student work provide a concrete basis for understanding test scores, focusing conferences, and supporting standards-based assessments. The varied components of Carlson's student assessment program form an integrated, cumulative, and comprehensive view of students' learning.

Conferences Three conferences are scheduled for each school year: at the end of the first reporting period, a goal-setting conference attended by the teacher and parent; near the middle of the third reporting period, a review-of-progress conference; at the the end of the fourth reporting period, a portfolio presentation conference.

Standards-Based Assessment Reports Standards-based assessment reports are issued at the end of each reporting period. These teacher-written reports, detailing the competencies and skills a child exhibits, are based on teachers' documented observations and their analysis of students' portfolios.

Portfolios Portfolios are an important component of Carlson's student assessment system. Portfolios are purposeful collections of student work designed to provide evidence of student growth and achievement as a learner, reflections on a child's assessment of his or her learning process, and insights about a child's thinking and learning processes.

Both the student and the teacher select the contents to be included in the portfolio. For each content item selected, the student or teacher also completes an entry form stating reasons for selecting the item.

Portfolio construction provides opportunities for students to routinely view and evaluate their own progress over time, develop the capacity to critique their own work, set goals for the future, communicate their thinking and learning processes to others, and become self-directed, independent learners.

Portfolios provide opportunities for parents and teachers to gain insights into how children think and construct knowledge, assess what a student is learning, plan learning experiences based on children's needs and interests, make judgments about a child's thoughtfulness about learning, assess the degree of effort expended, and determine goals that are developmentally appropriate for a child.