Aligning Tests with States' Content Standards: Methods and Issues

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires states to have developed content standards in Reading and Mathematics, and to employ some form of statewide assessment. For accurate inferences about student achievement and growth over time, these assessments must measure the knowledge and skills deemed valuable and described in these content standards. This article provides a description of models for evaluating the degree of alignment between assessments and content standards. Challenges to these models are described and discussed, and solutions are suggested. Two empirical alignment studies are summarized and implications of using different alignment models for aligning commercially available tests with content standards are also discussed.