DoDEA Comprehensive Assessment System

A Balanced Assessment System

DoDEA uses a balanced assessment system that provides benefits to our students in that educators and leaders will gain knowledge of their skills and mastery of content and as such plan for how to support them in their preparation for college and career. The seminal publication Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (National Research Council, 2001) crystalized the call for a balanced systems of assessment:

Assessments at all levels--from classroom to system-wide --will work together in a system that is comprehensive, coherent, and continuous. In such a system, assessments would provide a variety of evidence to support educational decision making. Assessment at all levels would be linked back to the same underlying model of student learning and would provide indications of student growth over time.

DoDEA-CAS is a balanced assessment system that consists of three components:

Component 1

CCRS Suite of Assessments

• CCRS summative assessments for literacy and math
• Assessments for Learning
• Alternate Assessment 
• K-5 Reading Proficiency Tool

Component 2

College and Career Ready Assessments

• PSAT 8/9
• PSAT/NMSQT
• Advanced Placement (AP) Exams
• CTE Exams
• ACT
• SAT

Component 3

Assessments for Specialized Content and Student Groups

• WIDA Assessments for ELLs
• CogAT
• Avant World Language Assessments
• NAEP

To learn more about the DoDEA-CAS assessments, please click the links on the left to access useful information for parents, educators, and students as it relates to each assessment.