Pilot Assessment Update
Spring, 1992

Ruth Callahan, Betty Hufford, Karen Schwalm, Carol Sunshine
English Department Assessment Committee
Glendale Community College, Glendale, AZ

Preface
Over the last decade, educators nation-wide have been under pressure to document the results of their efforts to teach students. Beginning with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), frequently known as the "nation's report card," a number of assessment initiatives have been started at the state, regional, and local levels, affecting elementary and secondary schools as well as proprietary and post-secondary institutions.

In Arizona, the legislature has mandated that all educational institutions assess effectiveness, but it left the choice of assessment methods up to the institutions involved. The Arizona Department of Education, for example, has developed the Assessment of Student Academic Progress (ASAP), the writing portion of which will be administered this year to students in grades 3, 8, and 10. At the post-secondary level in Arizona, a system for tracking the progress of students through their educational careers is being developed with encouragement from the Community College Board.

The North Central Association, which accredits post-secondary institutions in this region, has also mandated assessment of student academic achievement. NCA has not specified the methods that those institutions must use, instead emphasizing that any assessment plan should

• flow from the institution's mission;
• have a conceptual framework;
• have faculty ownership/responsibility;
• have institution-wide support;
• use multiple measures;
• provide feedback to students and the institution;
• be cost-effective;
• not restrict or inhibit goals of access, equity, and diversity established by the institution;
• lead to improvement; and
• include a process for evaluating the assessment program.

This District has established a committee to develop a system-wide assessment program that will help the District and its individual campuses plan and make decisions. The District has emphasized that such an assessment plan should be flexible, systematic, cost-effective, comprehensive, collegial, and useful. At Glendale, assessment is being coordinated by the Committee on Institutional Effectiveness; it encourages both departments and individual programs to develop assessment plans that directly serve their instructional goals. It is in this context that the English Department Pilot Assessment Program might be considered most fruitfully.