Presenter: Aneesha Badrinarayan

As educators and leaders continue to shift their practice to meet the vision for science teaching and learning of standards based on A Framework for K-12 Education, assessments have continued to miss the mark: the vast majority of current assessment practices at the classroom, district, and state levels continue to emphasize student performance that is misaligned with current standards and learning goals. At best, this misalignment is confusing and unhelpful; at worst, incoherence between assessments and the systems they are intended to measure and support can reinforce ineffective policies and practices. In this webinar, we will discuss features of high-quality science assessments for classroom and large-scale uses; the current landscape of science assessments available and used across the country; concrete actions for leaders to consider to support better assessment practices in their districts and states; and answer questions emerging from participants about how to enact more meaningful science assessment systems in their local contexts.

Speaker Bio: Aneesha Badrinarayan is an education policy consultant at Education First, where she supports states and districts in developing meaningful teaching, learning, and assessment systems across content areas and strategies. Prior to joining Education First, Aneesha led assessment initiatives and strategy at the Learning Policy Institute and Achieve. She is a national expert on instructionally relevant assessment systems, high-quality assessments, and science teaching, learning, and assessment. Over the last 20 years, Aneesha has led work related to high-quality instructional materials, assessment system development from classroom assessments to state assessments to NAEP, and professional learning. Trained as a behavioral neuroscientist, Aneesha comes to education policy via informal science education and bench science. She received her B.A. in Biology from Cornell University and her M.S. in neuroscience from the University of Michigan.