Designing District Common Assessments: Six Decisions for District Leaders

Just giving a shared test and calling it a common assessment can miss the purpose of a common assessment. Comparing results across campuses may not be accurate for several reasons, like the test being built or administered differently in each building. Or if two campuses report similar course grades but very different benchmark results, you don’t know whether the gap comes from grading, teaching, or testing, because there are too many variables and there may not have been a shared understanding, design, or goal of the exam.

Writing items is important, but going straight to creating the exam skips the important planning phase that actually makes common assessments effective. Whether a common assessment program produces usable data depends on a number of factors, but there are six district decisions that help to design common assessments:

• What the test is for
• How it’s built
• Who controls it
• What it counts for
• How results become action
• How it’s reviewed each year

How District Common Assessments Differ From Classroom Assessments

Classroom assessments give teachers fast feedback on a lesson or unit, and teachers score and use them as their class needs.

District common assessments have a different job:

• They’re aligned to standards through a shared blueprint.
• They’re given the same way everywhere: same time limits, same allowable tools, and accommodations that follow the state’s accessibility guidance.
• They produce results that mean the same thing at every campus.

Decision 1: What the Test Is For

Start with an assessment inventory. List every test students take in a year (screeners, state testing windows, district benchmarks, unit tests) and the decisions each one can inform. A district common assessment should fill a gap in that list, not duplicate something already on it.

State testing calendars are shifting in ways that affect this inventory.

In Texas for example, beginning in 2027-28, the Student Success Tool (SST) is replacing STAAR.

• Grades 3-8: beginning-of-year (BOY), middle-of-year (MOY), and end-of-year (EOY) tests.
• EOCs: BOY and MOY are optional for Algebra I, Biology, English I, and U.S. History.
• Timing: TEA has outlined BOY in September, MOY in January and February, EOY in May, and the RLA writing section in April.
• Alternatives: Districts may use a commissioner-approved alternative norm-referenced assessment in place of the state BOY and MOY, at district cost. TEA is building that approved list now.

These windows overlap the times many districts give fall and winter benchmarks. That makes 2026-27 the year to decide whether district benchmarks shift, shrink, or change purpose. The details may still change: TEA must report a transition plan to the legislature by February 15, 2027, and lawmakers can adjust the program in the 2027 session.

Florida is another example. FAST has three progress monitoring windows. PM1 and PM2 are informational, and PM3 is used for school accountability. The 2026-27 PM1 window runs August 10 to September 25. A district test that repeats PM1 or PM2 adds testing time without adding information. A test that checks specific standards between windows fills a real gap.

These are two examples of a growing trend that is intended to adapt state tests to a growth mindset, helping educators gather data so that it can inform instruction within a school year. Considering what the goals of these are and how your common assessments fit in with these other tests is worth seriously considering before creating anything.

Decision 2: How the Test Is Built

Match rigor and format. Items should match the state test’s cognitive demand, not just its topics. That typically means DOK 2 and 3. Items should also use the formats students will see on the state test, such as drag-and-drop and multi-select, so the format itself isn’t what’s being measured.

Plan enough items per standard. A short test can’t report reliably on many standards. Single-item results aren’t large enough to be dependable, and the available evidence points to at least 5 to 10 items for a stable report.

• Decide up front which standards the district will report on.
• If the test can’t carry enough items for each, report by reporting category or priority standard instead to maintain consistency.

Building the test should also have an eye on the setup during the administration. Consistent administration means the same proctoring, time limits, allowable tools, and accommodations (such as text-to-speech) at every campus. 

Decision 3: Who Controls the Test

A common assessment program needs clear ownership. Decide what’s fixed, what’s flexible, and who is the decision maker:

• Fixed district-wide: the blueprint, the testing window, administration rules, and accommodations.
• Flexible for campuses: reteach plans and additional classroom checks.

Name who does what. Specify who writes items, who reviews them (including any necessary bias and sensitivity review), and who gives final approval. Having teams of teachers to write items builds ownership while balancing the workload, and a district review step keeps quality consistent across buildings.

Decision 4: What the Test Counts For

Set stakes before the first administration. If the test counts for nothing, student effort can drop and results get noisy. If it counts heavily, pressure to narrow instruction increases.

Districts should decide:

• Whether and how the test counts in course grades;
• What results will and won’t be used for, stated in writing to teachers (if teachers believe results feed their evaluations, data quality suffers);
• Who sees campus-to-campus comparisons, and in what setting.

Once administration and implementation are both consistent, comparing course grades with common assessment results can show where grading practices differ across campuses.

Decision 5: How Results Become Action

The useful question is what explains results on a specific standard.

• Weak at every campus: usually points to something like curriculum, pacing, or the items themselves.
• Weak at one campus: points to a support need at that campus.
• Strong at some campuses: those campuses can inform district PD and coaching.

Disaggregate results by subgroup (English learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students) for equity and federal programs reporting. Then route students to Tier 2 and Tier 3 support.

Progress Learning supports this step in several significant ways:

• Quick Click Remediation identifies up to three of the weakest standards across attempts and assigns targeted practice in one click.
• Liftoff provides adaptive Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention in grades 2-8.
• Reports are available at the student, class, campus, and district levels.

Decision 6: How the Test Is Reviewed Each Year

After each administration, run an overall item analysis. Flag items that were too easy, too hard, or didn’t separate stronger from weaker students. Review which wrong answers students chose, since distractor patterns point to specific misconceptions.

After the first full year, compare district results with state results to get more consistent results. For example if many students who met the district cut score weren’t proficient on the state test, adjust the cut score rather than defaulting to a fixed percentage like 70%.

When the state test or standards change, recalibrate instead of comparing results across the change. Two examples that can show how important this becomes in practice:

Texas. 2026-27 is the last STAAR year, which makes it the last chance to check district benchmarks against STAAR results. Under the SST, BOY and MOY will be adaptive and EOY will be a fixed form, so expect trend lines to break.

Pennsylvania. Spring 2026 brought the first operational Science PSSA (grades 5 and 8) and Keystone Biology aligned to the STEELS standards.

• Educator committees recommended new cut scores after summer scoring, and the State Board approved them in September 2026.
• Prior Biology results aren’t included in best-score calculations for students who take the STEELS test.
• District science assessments built to the old standards, or calibrated to the old cut scores, need rework.

A Short Planning Checklist

• Purpose: What decision does each common assessment inform, and does it duplicate an existing test?
• Blueprint: Which standards will we report on, and does each have enough items?
• Governance: What’s fixed district-wide, what can campuses adapt, and who approves items?
• Stakes: Does the test count in grades, and have we stated how results will and won’t be used?
• Action: Can we see results by standard, campus, and subgroup, and route students to intervention?
• Review: When will we run item analysis and check results against the state test, and what’s the plan if the state test changes?

How Progress Learning Supports District Common Assessments

Progress Learning is a practice and assessment platform that supports the creation of common assessments for districts and helps in each of these decisions.

• Blueprint and items: Our custom assessment builder lets everybody from teachers to district leaders use our 200,000+ item bank to create common assessments aligned to state standards.
• Consistent administration: Proctor Mode and Shared Live Monitoring let teachers monitor student activity during an assignment or assessment to know if they are on task, how long items are taking the class, and gives insight about how each individual and a class in general responded to any given activity, including assessments.
• Results to action: We create individualized study plans for each student based on what they need to practice, Quick Click Remediation that lets teachers assign this remediation with one click, and Liftoff adaptive intervention for students who need focused help.

Progress Learning’s effectiveness is backed by independent research that shows schools and districts who use our assessment builder and practice in the platform consistently score better than those who don’t. If you want to understand how Progress Learning removes friction and helps you to create better assessments across your district, get in touch below.