What gets assessed gets done. It’s an old maxim, but is still true. Currently, what is being assessed are literacy and numeracy, in their many guises, and occasionally other subject areas, with a focus on the retention of knowledge. We often hear of leaders in education, politics and business proclaiming the importance of contemporary skills –sometimes called 21st Century skills. However, it seems assessment needs to catch up to this area of the curriculum. There are many examples of contemporary skills and they typically include communication, information and technological literacy; critical thinking and problem solving; creativity and innovation; collaboration and teamwork; and metacognition. Yet, despite many calls for schools to develop these competencies, no national test – the general barometer by which teachers, school leaders and education systems are measured – has been devised to assess them. Are national tests a good measure of this broad cluster of competencies? Read Full Article here