Respondents told us that teachers had to be willing to acknowledge both strengths and weaknesses and be willing to openly discuss these with colleagues. In addition, organizational cultures that viewed accountability as helpful rather than threatening enabled complex DDDM [data driven decision-making] processes. (Ikemoto & Marsh, 2007, p. 124) An observer of American education might well think that the most underrated achievement of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; 2002) is the expansion of formative assessment. Many states and districts have begun using formative phonological awareness and pre-/early reading assessments such as the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) as part of Reading First contracts. Many districts encourage or require that students take tests that are supposed to be shorter or parallel equivalents to the state tests several times each school year. And in late summer 2007, Representative George Miller released draft language for the reauthorization of NCLB that would explicitly provide incentives for school systems to use and expand formative assessment (U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, 2007).
