Assessment Tools

National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS) provide Catholic school sponsors and stakeholders with a sound set of criteria which they can confidently use to develop tools and resources for authentic accreditation, self-assessment, reflection, strategic action, and collaboration. Rubrics, checklists, exemplars, published articles, research and links to professional development based on the Standards support implementation of best practice and growth in excellence at the school and diocesan/network levels. School leaders and school review teams can use these online tools to guide their work and easily communicate results and next steps.

Benchmark Rubrics

Working with the Benchmark Rubrics, schools and dioceses can self-assess school performance in each of the four domains.

Benchmark Guidelines

The Benchmark Guidelines provide additional assistance to Catholic schools and arch/dioceses as they implement the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS) by self-assessing school performance using the benchmark rubrics. The Benchmark Guidelines offer deeper insights, useful clarifications, essential questions, and next steps that school teams can use to interpret the benchmark rubrics, gather and analyze evidence, and score their school’s performance. The companion Glossary provides modified definitions and explanations for selected key terms. To make the best use of the Benchmark Guidelines, school teams should use them as a resource in conjunction with using the Rubric Scoring Worksheets.

Surveys

The Catholic Identity Program Effectiveness and Defining Characteristics of Catholic Schools Surveys allow schools and dioceses to survey stakeholders on their performance in each of the four domains.

Worksheets

The Rubric Scoring Worksheet (RSW) walks teams through the steps of understanding the benchmark, developing an evidence/data plan, gathering evidence and analyzing data, generating a rubric score, and making recommendations for improvement. The Dashboard for Rubric Scoring (DRS) gives schools a tool for monitoring progress of school-wide self-assessment using the benchmark rubrics, and a quick snapshot of significant distilled data to direct school improvement planning.