New York Performance Standards Consortium Schools
The New York Performance Standards Consortium is a CES National affiliate, with schools across New York state. A partial list of its members include:
Academic Community for Educational Success, Bedford Hills
Arturo Schomberg Satellite Academy, Bronx
Brooklyn International High School, Brooklyn
Community School for Social Justice, Bronx
Essex Street Academy, Manhattan
Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, Bronx
Humanities Preparatory Academy, Manhattan (CES Mentor School)
Institute for Collaborative Education, Manhattan
Landmark High School, Manhattan
Legacy High School, Roosevelt Island
Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca
Manhattan International High School, Manhattan
Manhattan Village Academy, Manhattan
Middle College High School at LaGuardia College, Queens
Pablo Neruda High School, Bronx
Satellite Academy – Forsyth Street, Manhattan
Satellite Academy High School, Manhattan
School of the Future, Manhattan (CES Mentor School)
School Without Walls, Rochester
The Brooklyn School for Global Studies, Brooklyn
The Daytop Preparatory School, Manhattan
The James Baldwin School, Manhattan (CES New Small School)
University Heights High School, Bronx
Urban Academy High School, Manhattan (CES Mentor School)
Vanguard High School, Manhattan
While much of the Consortium’s recent work has been characterized by an anti-high stakes standardized tests stance, focused on the legal challenges that schools using performance-based assessment face, its main work has been the creation of a broad-based system of performance-based assessment that calibrates expectations and standards not only within a school but among schools. Such a system ensures validity and reliability while preserving autonomy for individual teachers and schools. The Consortium suggests that to support performance assessment as a whole-school based accountability system, schools need to implement six components:
Active learning:
- Discussion-based classrooms
- Project-based assignments
- Original research and experiment design
- Student choice embedded in course work
Formative and summative documentation:
- Transcripts of previous school history including attendance and grades
- An intake process that includes interview and writing samples
- Cumulative documentation: attendance, course performance, tests
- Student reports
- Parent teacher conferences
- Staff review of work patterns and work products
Strategies for corrective action:
- Feedback on written work
- Narrative reports
- Student teacher conferences
- Parent teacher conferences
- After-school homework labs
- Peer tutoring
Multiple ways for students to express and exhibit learning:
- Writing: literary essays, research papers, playwriting, poetry, lyrics
- Oral presentations: discussions, debate, poetry reading, dramatic
- Presentation, external presentations
- Artistic renderings: sculpture, painting, drawing, photography
Graduation level performance-based tasks aligned with Learning Standards:
- Analytic literary essay
- Social Studies research paper
- Original science experiment
- Application of higher level mathematics
A focus on professional development:
- School-based and Center-based workshops which strengthen inquiry-based teaching
- Sessions reviewing student work and teacher assignments
- Opportunities to critique student presentations and scoring procedures
- Mentoring of less experienced teachers by master teachers
- Refining rubrics and reviewing performance assessment processes
- Support for school-based research
Adapted from the New York Performance Standards Consortium website. In addition to these components, the Consortium’s website provides sample rubrics, curriculum resources, and more information aimed at creating and sustaining performance based assessment systems.