A Look into New Hampshire’s Performance Assessment for Competency Education
January 28, 2020
In 2018, New Hampshire became only the second state “approved to participate in the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) pilot program under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).” The program, known as Performance Assessment for Competency Education (PACE), is an “innovative assessment system that determines student proficiency by combining scores” from locally administered performance tasks developed by districts to “determine student mastery” as well as a “PACE Common Performance Task, which calibrates scoring and is intended to provide some degree of comparability across districts.” As an alternative to standardized, statewide assessments, PACE potentially “poses a number of opportunities to improve instruction and boost outcomes,” as well as some risks.