The best preparation for any assessment should be the work that is taking place in the classroom. This is not only true for in-class formative assessments, but also for end-of-year standardized assessments as well. While the latter checks for understanding as students progress through a school’s coursework, the former is designed to aid in evaluating the summative academic development of the student in a given year by providing an external metric for that evaluation. Standardized assessments are intended to work with and support a school’s academic goals; however, the great concern of many teachers and administrators is how to avoid “teaching to the test.” This talk will provide some insights into this concern, how to avoid it, and what using testing data could look like for classical schools.

Adam Roate currently serves as the Senior Director of Partnerships at Classic Learning Test (CLT) and has previously worked as a teacher and administrator at classical schools in Alabama, Texas, and Idaho. He and his wife, Amanda, currently reside in Birmingham, AL with their two dogs, Artemis and Freyja.