In the 1950s in Brooklyn, New York, a special educator named Else Haeussermann defied testing conventions by asking not what a child knew, but how he or she learned. She wasn’t interested in sorting children by scores or noting deficiencies with clinical precision; she wanted to understand how they learned and under what conditions they could succeed. Working alongside a young educational psychologist, Edmund W. Gordon, she would adapt tasks—clarifying, chunking, or connecting them to a child’s experience—to discover their strengths and adaptations. This learner-centered approach affirmed an insight Gordon has retained to this day: the primary purpose of assessment is to inform and improve learning, not merely to certify status.

Today, that insight is more urgent than ever. Fundamental tensions exist between industrial-era testing practices and what modern science tells us about how people actually learn. For too long, educational assessment has been fixated on ranking students and certifying “what is,” a practice that often perpetuates opportunity gaps and creates a culture of anxiety. The Handbook for Assessment in the Service of Learning, Volume II, contends that it is time to shift away from outdated traditions and reconceptualize assessment not as a final judgment, but as an engine for learning.

The chapters in this volume illustrate that using assessments to support learning, rather than just reflect it, requires a foundational shift–a move beyond the simple audit of achieved competence to a model that illuminates the learning process itself. As Susan M. Brookhart reminds us, this work begins by creating a supportive learning culture built on the solid foundation of formative assessment, where clear goals and rich feedback are the norm. But this new foundation cannot be built without confronting a legacy of bias. As Stephen G. Sireci, Sergio Araneda, and Kimberly McIntee argue, issues of social justice cannot be afterthoughts in assessment design; they must be foundational principles from the start. A learning-centric system must also be a justice-centric one, actively working to dismantle historical biases and create more opportunity rich educational environments.

Read the full article about a learner-centered approach to assessment by Eric Tucker, Edmund W. Gordon, and Stephen G. Sireci at Getting Smart.