Is the Era of Benchmark Testing Finally Ending?
A Brief History of How We Got Here
In 2001, the US education system became governed by the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act that required criterion-referenced testing at grades 3 – 8 in ELA and Math and again at HS. Federal Title I funding was now tied to test scores. States created academic standards and end-of-year statewide tests. Legislation was enacted to ensure that schools were in compliance and on the path to achieving grade-level proficiency for 100% of students by 2014 as required by NCLB.
By 2010, it was clear that absolutely no state was on track. NCLB had transformed public schools into test prep factories just to try and keep up. The practice of benchmark testing was becoming widespread– identifying students whose scores could be raised up with just a little tutoring. Public education had become a numbers game.
Back in 1994, the federal government had enacted the Charter Schools Program. Charter schools were part of the public accountability system but were free to operate differently than other public schools. In 1997, Uncommon Schools opened North Star Academy in Newark, NJ. When NCLB became law, North Star Academy was actually making the kinds of proficiency gains that the law required. How was that possible when virtually every other public school in the US was not?
The Roadmap for Success Is Published: Daily Data-Driven Instruction
Two remarkable educators from the Uncommon Schools charter network, each published books in 2010 that gave the answer. Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion and Paul Bambrick-Santoyo’s Driven by Data mapped out what effective teaching and learning should look like at every school:
- Teach Like a Champion gave teachers a playbook of concrete classroom techniques.
- Driven by Data gave schools a system for embedding formative assessment and progress monitoring into daily practice.
The core idea was simple: student learning should not be measured every nine weeks in a benchmark test. It should be measured every day, in every class, through exit tickets, checks for understanding, and immediate reteach and enrichment cycles. This was the only sure path to raising student achievement and delivering a blue ribbon education to students.
The books were widely praised and became the blueprint for school reform.
But 15 years later, most public schools are still stuck in the benchmark cycle. Why?
Why Districts Got Stuck at Benchmark Testing
Despite the clarity of Lemov’s and Bambrick-Santoyo’s playbooks, daily data-driven instruction never scaled. Instead, the practice of giving interim assessments is all that took root.
Interim assessment, often called “benchmark testing,” is the practice of giving districtwide tests once every 6 – 9 weeks. Assessment departments use the data to predict state test scores.
Several forces locked districts into benchmark testing:
- Technology gap: In 2010, most schools did not have 1:1 computing. Teachers had no way to collect daily digital data. Paper exit tickets piled up, and grading delays made daily checks impractical.
- Clunky platforms: The assessment systems districts adopted were built for benchmark testing. They were compliance-driven and difficult for teachers and principals to use. Many are still in use today.
- State accountability systems: Since school ratings were tied almost exclusively to standardized test scores, districts prioritized benchmark tests as predictors of state results.
- Resource inequity: Teachers were asked to become data scientists, running spreadsheets late at night to make sense of benchmark results, rather than using real-time formative data.
Together, these barriers pushed U.S. schools into a toxic test prep cycle where only “bubble kids” — students near the passing line — received attention.
Houston ISD: A Bold Attempt to Break the Cycle
Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the eighth-largest district in the U.S., serving more than 180,000 students. In 2023, after years of chronic underperformance, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) took over the district and appointed Mike Miles as superintendent.
Miles, a former Army officer and charter school founder, drew on high-performing charter practices to launch the New Education System (NES). The NES requires:
- Daily Demonstrations of Learning (DOLs): Every lesson ends with a short check for understanding.
- Immediate data use: Teachers reteach or enrich immediately based on results.
- Centralized curriculum support: District teams create curriculum materials, aligned DOLs and enrichment tasks, ensuring quality and consistency.
- Schoolwide accountability: Principals lead daily and weekly data cycles to track learning.
NES represents one of the boldest attempts ever to shift a large, traditional district away from benchmarks and into daily data-driven instruction.
Why the NES Model Is Hard — and Why It Matters
Reorganizing HISD into a system that responds daily to student data is enormously difficult.
- Teachers must develop new habits of embedding DOLs into every lesson.
- Principals must run tight weekly data cycles instead of waiting for quarterly benchmarks.
- Curriculum staff must generate aligned, ready-to-use exit tickets and enrichment activities.
It is disruptive, and it challenges decades of institutional inertia. But the payoff is enormous: teachers no longer wait nine weeks to find out that students missed a skill. Teachers know by the end of a lesson what students need and can reteach now, or at the latest, tomorrow. And the latest data speaks for itself.
Proof of Results: HISD and Success Academies
HISD’s Ratings Growth
In August 2025, TEA released two years of A–F accountability ratings. HISD showed major gains:
- The share of campuses rated A–C rose from 55% in 2022 to 78% in 2025.
- Dozens of campuses moved from “F” ratings to passing.
- Growth rates were especially strong in NES schools【Houston Public Media, 2025】.
📊 HISD Campus Growth 2022–2025
Success Academies’ Sustained Excellence
Success Academies operate 47 schools that serve 17,000 students in NYC from predominantly low-income families. Though not as large as HISD, this student enrollment number is larger than 80% of the school districts in the US.
Success Academies in New York City consistently posts math and reading proficiency rates far above city and state averages — in some years, over 90% of students proficient in math, compared with NYC’s ~50% average.
📊 Success Academies vs. NYC Average (2019–2023)
Together, HISD and Success Academies show that daily data-driven instruction works in both district and charter settings — and across different student populations in vastly differing regions of the country.
Daily Data-Driven Instruction Is Finally Possible
There are no more barriers to adopting daily data-driven instruction. If HISD and charter networks around the country can do it, so can your school. Why? Because the structural barriers that halted widespread adoption in 2010 are gone.
- 1:1 computing is now common. Billions in ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds put laptops and tablets in nearly every student’s hands. That alone eliminates the biggest barrier to daily formative assessment.
- New platforms are built for classrooms. Unlike the old benchmark systems, today’s tools are designed for daily data collection, instant feedback, and instructional decision-making.
- AI support reduces teacher burden. Teachers no longer need to run spreadsheets. Platforms can group students, generate reteach materials, and provide reports instantly.
This is the environment Lemov and Bambrick-Santoyo were waiting for in 2010. Daily data-driven instruction is finally feasible at scale.
Why Modern Formative Assessment Platforms Change the Game
One of the clearest examples of a modern formative assessment platform is Classwork.com, which supports districts moving their progress monitoring efforts beyond benchmarks:
- Interactive activities mirror state assessment tasks, eliminating the need for traditional test prep.
- Instant autograding gives students and teachers immediate feedback.
- District libraries allow curriculum leaders to easily construct and distribute approved digital DOLs, exit tickets, and enrichment tasks instantly.
- AI-powered analysis translates raw data into reteach plans, student groupings, and next-day adjustments.
- Psychometric reporting explains growth, standards mastery, and subgroup performance in plain language.
Unlike older platforms — which evolved to manage benchmark testing — these tools are purpose-built for daily formative assessment and progress monitoring. And because they’re so much easier to use, rollouts are quick.
Data-Driven Instruction: Proven and Ready to Scale
The NES is not unique in principle. Networks like Uncommon Schools, Success Academies, KIPP, and Achievement First have proven for years that frequent formative assessment cycles work. Public districts like Boston, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, and Denver have piloted similar models.
What’s different now is scalability. HISD proves the model can work at the scale of a massive urban district. Success Academies prove it can sustain excellence over time. And modern platforms prove it can be practical to implement at any school.
Texas Passes HB 8 Banning Interim Assessments
Texas has been taking notice of HISD’s gains. The Legislature has also been listening to educators and parents who are concerned by the amount of useless testing their students are subjected to.
In 2025, House Bill 8 (HB 8) was passed, effectively banning district-mandated interim assessments. The law aims to curb over-testing and restore instructional time. But it has also spotlighted the elephant in the room: interims alone were never sufficient for real instructional improvement.
For districts that built their data strategy on interims, HB 8 has created a void. But it has also created an opportunity to finally embrace the part of the Driven by Data cycle that was most often ignored—daily formative checks.
Conclusion: The Era of Benchmarks Is Ending
In 2010, Lemov and Bambrick-Santoyo gave schools the blueprint for daily data-driven instruction. Yet the practice of giving benchmarks continued to reign because of device shortages, clunky technology, and accountability distortions.
Now, those excuses are gone. Houston’s NES shows daily data-driven instruction is possible in one of the largest districts in America. Success Academies prove it delivers excellence year after year. New formative assessment platforms like Classwork.com make it sustainable.
And with Texas, the second largest state in the US, banning interim assessments, the message is clear: the era of benchmarks is ending. The best way forward is the one mapped out 15 years ago — formative assessment every day, progress monitoring in real time, immediate reteach, and relentless student growth.
Sources
- Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion (Jossey-Bass, 2010).
https://www.teachlikeachampion.com/books/teach-like-a-champion/ - Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, Driven by Data (Jossey-Bass, 2010).
https://www.uncommonschools.org/our-approach/books/driven-by-data/ - Houston Public Media, “TEA releases last two years of A–F school ratings” (2025).
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2025/08/15/528743/tea-releases-last-two-years-of-a-f-school-ratings-heres-how-to-find-your-campus/ - Success Academies, “Results.”
https://www.successacademies.org/results/ - Texas Legislature Online, House Bill 8 (HB 8).
https://capitol.texas.gov/ - Education First, Formative Assessment in the Classroom (2016).
https://education-first.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/MSDF-Formative-Assessment-Study-Final-Report.pdf - U.S. Department of Education, “ESSER Funds Overview.
https://oese.ed.gov/esser/