QPA is committed to working in different policy contexts to support the implementation of the next generation of assessment systems:

Schools- QPA provides professional development, tools, resources, and guidance on how to build performance assessments of high technical quality.

Districts- QPA provides professional development, tools, resources, and guidance on how to build performance assessment systems that are of high technical quality for all district schools.  These systems may include a mix of both district performance assessment tasks and school-based performance assessment tasks.  QPA ELA Performance Assessments can serve as models for how to build a common performance assessment system 

States- QPA provides guidance and resources on the role of performance assessments in state-wide student assessment systems, through both common performance assessments and the use of locally developed performance assessments as a graduation requirement.

Massachusetts – The QPA team has collaborated with representatives from MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Measured Progress, the state testing contractor, throughout the process of developing common performance assessments. It provides technical assistance to the Department on their Race to the Top Performance Assessment efforts.

Regional - The New England region includes several states that are actively pursuing the use of performance assessments to enhance students learning and college readiness. QPA looks forward to sharing the work and accomplishments of the initiative and to offer our professional development models for interested states.

National - QPA is a frequent presenter on the power of performance assessments at national conferences including CCSSO's National Conference on Student Assessment, AERA, and CES Fall Forum.   QPA will continue to contribute to the national conversation around student assessment and accountability with an emphasis on the power of practitioner developed performance assessment as a tool for supporting student achievement.

"As a country, we need to shift away from an education system in which students graduate based on “seat time” and course completion towards one based on graduation through demonstration of mastery of standards and building expertise in each content discipline. If teachers collectively learn to design and implement performance assessments with technical quality, the policy door will be opened to teacher- designed performance assessments that count."

Quality Performance Assessment: Harnessing the Power of Teacher and Student Learning Executive Summary