Evaluating the Federal Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority: Early Implementation and Progress of State Efforts to Develop New Statewide Academic Assessments

Education officials have long hoped that the statewide academic assessments most students take each year could be used not only for accountability, but also to guide instruction. Congress established the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) program in 2015 to help address this goal, offering states temporary flexibility from certain federal testing requirements so that they may more easily make progress toward replacing their current assessments with more innovative ones. However, states approved for IADA must still show that their innovative assessments meet most requirements for federal accountability, and they are expected to implement the new assessments statewide within 5 years. This report describes the progress of the first five IADA systems through the 2020–21 school year. The report is primarily based on an analysis of states' IADA applications and performance reports to the U.S. Department of Education and is part of a broader evaluation of IADA required by Congress.