Eight groups of diverse faculty representing all subject areas had the task of coming up with a draft assessment philosophy statement for a middle school of 500 students.  They started out with a chalk talk centered on the question: If impacting student learning is our shared goal, what assessment philosophy and practice lead us to positive outcomes?  The task facing a subset of the faculty, leaders of subject-area PLCs, is to synthesize the work of the eight groups into one assessment philosophy statement that is a beacon for their continued efforts to build an assessment framework that supports all students learning and achieving.  The Wordle below (click on the Wordle to bring up a larger and clearer image) illustrates the words that came up most frequently in the eight different philosophy statements.

What words are missing that should be part of an assessment philosophy that pays attention to current research in education and human development and is visionary in nature?  While frequency may be the wrong indicator to rely on, what words appear with less frequency that you would want to elevate or hold up more in this assessment work.