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The History and Policy Foundations of Through-Year Assessment

Originally published November 2025 · Updated September 2026

Explore the history of through-year assessment, from ESSA and IADA to current state models in Florida, Texas, Indiana, Nebraska, and Kansas.

The Evolution of Through-Year Assessment

Through-year assessment has become an important part of the national conversation about how statewide testing can provide more useful information during the school year.

Traditional state assessment systems have generally relied on an end-of-year summative test to measure whether students met grade-level standards. That information serves an important accountability purpose, but its timing can limit how useful it is for teachers working with those same students.

Through-year approaches explore a different model: gathering evidence at multiple points during the academic year so educators can better understand student progress while instruction is still underway.

The idea isn’t simply to test more often. The larger goal is to make assessment more connected to instruction, more timely, and more useful to educators, while continuing to meet requirements for statewide academic assessment and accountability.

ESSA and the Federal Foundation for Assessment Innovation

A major policy foundation for this work came with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015.

Section 1204 of ESSA established the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA), allowing approved state education agencies to develop, pilot, evaluate, and eventually scale innovative assessment systems while maintaining federal requirements for academic assessment and accountability.

IADA gave states room to explore approaches that could differ significantly from traditional statewide testing. Participating states have pursued models including curriculum-connected assessments, performance tasks, and other innovative designs intended to make assessment more meaningful and useful. U.S. Department of Education

Originally, ESSA limited IADA participation to seven states during an initial demonstration period. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the initial period had ended and lifted the seven-state cap, opening the authority to additional states. The Department also clarified timelines, comparability requirements, and other elements intended to make participation more accessible. U.S. Department of Education

The federal framework continues to evolve. Missouri received IADA approval in 2025, and Kansas received approval in July 2026 to begin piloting its Through-Year Curriculum-Directed Assessment during the 2026–27 school year. U.S. Department of Education

Florida FAST: From Annual Testing to Progress Monitoring

Florida provides one of the most established examples of statewide progress monitoring.

The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) replaced Florida’s previous grade-level assessments in English language arts and mathematics beginning in the 2022–23 school year.

For grades 3–10 ELA Reading and grades 3–8 Mathematics, FAST uses three progress-monitoring periods:

  • PM1 at the beginning of the school year provides a baseline.
  • PM2 provides a midyear measure of progress.
  • PM3 serves as the end-of-year summative assessment.


The assessments are computer-adaptive and aligned to Florida’s B.E.S.T. Standards. Florida continues to report PM1-to-PM3 results, including statewide and district results for the 2025–26 school year. Florida Department of Education

Florida’s model illustrates an important distinction in the through-year assessment conversation: multiple checkpoints can provide educators with information during the year while still producing an end-of-year measure used for accountability.

States Are Taking Different Paths

There isn’t one national model for through-year assessment. States are taking different approaches based on their standards, accountability systems, instructional goals, and policy environments.

Texas

Texas began exploring through-year assessment through the Texas Through-year Assessment Pilot (TTAP), created following House Bill 3906 in 2019. The pilot examined whether the state’s summative assessment could eventually be replaced with a cohesive progress-monitoring model. Texas Education Agency

That landscape changed significantly with House Bill 8, passed in 2025. Beginning in the 2027–28 school year, Texas will replace STAAR with the Student Success Tool (SST), a new instructionally supportive assessment program. TTAP is now paused until spring 2029 as the state moves forward with HB 8 implementation. Texas Education Agency

Indiana

Indiana has moved beyond the pilot stage in grades 3–8 ELA and mathematics. Its current ILEARN Through-Year Assessment includes three checkpoints during the school year followed by an end-of-year summative assessment.

Indiana describes checkpoint data as information educators can use to inform instruction and interventions on state academic standards throughout the school year. Indiana Government

Nebraska

Nebraska’s current NSCAS Growth system for grades 3–8 ELA and mathematics includes fall, winter, and spring testing windows. The state describes its broader assessment approach as a balanced system that connects assessment information with instruction and student learning. Nebraska Department of Education

Kansas

Kansas became one of the newest states to receive federal IADA approval in July 2026. Its Through-Year Curriculum-Directed Assessment begins implementation in six districts during the 2026–27 school year.

Participating students will complete brief assessments each quarter that are aligned with what students are learning during the year. Kansas plans to return results within 72 hours after each assessment window closes and combine the results to produce an annual determination of student performance. Kansas State Department of Education

Together, these examples show how varied the movement has become. Some states have implemented statewide progress-monitoring systems, some are building through-year systems around instructional checkpoints, and others continue to pilot new approaches under federal flexibility.

The Promise—and the Challenge—of Through-Year Assessment

Through-year assessment offers several potential advantages:

  • More opportunities to understand student progress during the school year
  • Information that may be available early enough to support instructional decisions
  • Multiple data points rather than reliance on a single testing event
  • Greater potential to connect assessment with curriculum and classroom instruction

But implementing these systems is complex.

States must address technical issues including validity, reliability, comparability, accessibility, and the aggregation of results. They must also consider testing time, technology, educator training, curriculum alignment, and how assessment information will actually be used in schools.

Federal research into the early years of IADA illustrates those challenges. The first five IADA systems all sought to make assessment information more useful for teaching, but early implementation was slower and more difficult than anticipated. After two or three years, the participating systems had made limited progress toward the program’s original five-year statewide scale-up goal. Institute of Education Sciences

That experience reinforces an important point: changing the assessment itself is only one part of building a more instructionally supportive system.

What the Research Tells Us

Research and policy analysis point toward the potential value of assessment systems that provide educators with more timely and instructionally relevant information.

A 2023 Education First review examined through-year assessment pilots across eight states and identified important design decisions, enabling conditions, and questions that states must address as they develop these models. Education First

The Center for American Progress reported in 2024 that at least 13 states were exploring through-year assessment models at that time, while also noting the potential for closer connections among assessment, curriculum, and classroom instruction. Center for American Progress

Federal evaluations of IADA, however, demonstrate that innovation doesn’t automatically translate into successful implementation. Building technically sound assessments, scaling them statewide, and making their results useful to educators require significant time, infrastructure, and support. Institute of Education Sciences

The direction is promising, but the evidence also suggests that assessment design alone cannot create an instructionally supportive system.

From State Assessment to Everyday Instruction

Statewide assessments provide important checkpoints and comparable measures of student performance. But even a system with several assessment windows cannot capture everything that happens during instruction.

Students generate evidence of learning every day through assignments, open-ended responses, checks for understanding, discussions, practice, and other classroom work.

The opportunity for districts is to connect those different layers of evidence.

Classwork helps turn everyday instructional work into useful, standards-aligned evidence. Teachers can create or convert activities, collect auto-scored and open-ended student responses, and use reporting to better understand performance. At the district level, leaders can see patterns across classrooms, schools, teachers, and standards.

That doesn’t replace statewide assessment. It helps fill in the instructional picture between formal assessment checkpoints.

Conclusion

Through-year assessment isn’t one program or one testing model. It’s part of a broader effort to rethink when assessment information becomes available, how it connects to instruction, and how schools use evidence of student learning.

The policy landscape has evolved considerably since ESSA created IADA in 2015. Florida now operates a statewide progress-monitoring system. Indiana has implemented through-year assessment in grades 3–8 ELA and mathematics. Texas is preparing for a major assessment transition under HB 8. And newly approved IADA states such as Kansas are continuing to test new approaches. U.S. Department of Education

The next phase of this work isn’t simply about replacing one test with several.

It’s about building stronger connections among assessment, curriculum, everyday instruction, and the evidence educators use to support student learning.

Formal assessments provide important checkpoints. Classwork helps districts see more of the story in between.

Connect Assessment Checkpoints to Everyday Learning

See how Classwork helps districts capture and use classroom evidence between formal assessments—creating a more continuous view of student learning throughout the year.

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References

This article is part of the Classwork.com Through-Year Assessment Series. 

Read the full series here.

What is through-year assessment?

Through-year assessment is an approach that gathers information about student learning at multiple points during the school year rather than relying only on a single end-of-year assessment. Models vary by state, but the goal is to provide more timely information about student progress while maintaining statewide assessment and accountability requirements.

How is through-year assessment different from traditional state testing?

Traditional state assessment systems have generally relied heavily on an end-of-year summative assessment. Through-year models incorporate multiple assessment points or progress-monitoring opportunities during the year, creating additional opportunities to understand student progress before the school year ends.

What role did ESSA play in through-year assessment?

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 established the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA). IADA allows approved states to develop and pilot innovative assessment systems while continuing to meet federal assessment and accountability requirements.

Which states are using or developing through-year assessments?

States are taking different approaches. Florida operates the FAST progress-monitoring system, Indiana uses ILEARN Through-Year Assessment, Nebraska uses NSCAS Growth, and Kansas received federal approval in 2026 to pilot a Through-Year Curriculum-Directed Assessment. Texas is also redesigning its statewide assessment system under HB 8, with the Student Success Tool scheduled to begin in the 2027–28 school year.

Is through-year assessment the same as more testing?

Not necessarily. Through-year assessment is about changing when and how assessment evidence is collected and used, not simply adding tests. States must balance the value of additional information with instructional time, technical requirements, and the overall testing burden.

How does Classwork support a through-year assessment model?

Classwork helps districts make the learning that happens between formal assessment checkpoints more visible. Teachers can collect standards-aligned evidence through everyday classroom activities and student responses, while schools and district leaders can use reporting to identify patterns across classrooms, schools, and standards. This complements—not replaces—statewide assessment.