I agree that we need more and better assessment - but I don't understand why we would allow a private body to do what should be a utility function of our educational system. Currently, the College Board is able to fill this niche (at great cost) due to a lack of trust in the assessments of individual instructors. Rather than further increasing the cost of assessment by expanding the use of private arbiters, we should seek to make the assessments that are already taking place (in far greater number and scope) more reliable and trustworthy.

I believe this would take the form of a dedicated assessment tool that allows teachers to create individualized assessments JIT based on - or in concert with - their planning and performance workflow. If I'm teaching a structured lesson on polynomials, I should be able to create a valid assessment simply be requesting that one is made. My students should be able to take that assessment on the spot and the results should be immediately available.

I will take assessments with 80% confidence of validity 10x/week over assessments with 100% validity once per year every. single. time.

There's more to be said here - but that's the gist.