How can we ensure the quality of our benchmark tests?

This is a critical issue because it’s very difficult to achieve since it’s based on teacher judgment. I would create a quality control committee made up of teachers who teach the subject that you are testing. And, hopefully, you will find teachers who have served on the department of education’s SOL test item review committee. That committee meets every summer because they’ve been trained to identify and screen good items on the SOL test.

Get this committee together. Have the data bank of test items that you have either purchased or your teachers have developed and have your quality control committee look at items that they believe are good, and rate them, basically, on whether they are acceptable or unacceptable. Then create a test that matches the Blueprint in terms of the emphasis of the topics. I’d put that test together and ensure that those items are not available to teachers for practice so children don’t see the items before the actual nine weeks test.

I’d also apply the same level of security for the nine weeks test that you apply for the SOL test: in other words, number the test books, count them out; collect them; don’t let teachers make copies of them: all the cautions that you would have on the SOL test.