Standards-based approach

As I read through information on the Internet about Standards-based assessments, the context is usually state testing. There is talk of moving from a comparison of how a student performs with respect to other students in that grade to the extent to which a student shows mastery of a content. In many math text books I see pages in each section dedicated to how that particular content will look on a standardized test, "teaching to the test."
The Education Commission of the States published a report in 2002 responding to "No Child Left Behind" and gave 6 criteria for assessments:

• Assessment tasks should involve activities that are valued in their own right, engaging

students in “real-world” problems rather than artificial tasks.

• Assessments should model curriculum reform.

• Assessment activities should focus on objectives consistent with the goals of instructional

activities, thus contributing to instructional improvement.

• Assessments should provide a mechanism for staff development.

• Assessments should lead to improved learning by engaging students in meaningful

activities that are intrinsically motivating.

• Assessments should lead to greater and more appropriate accountability.

As a teacher, I know I will need to be conscious of State testing, but in the trenches I am concerned with how to assess authentically and in a way that helps students and parents see where they are academically what they need work on. Nothing helps me more than seeing someone else do it. David Cox has a blog that he shows different and inspired ways of assessing students. He video tapes a task a group of kids are doing and adds their summaries and discoveries to it. I can see so many different ways of assessing, but it's the assigning a level of mastery that I think is the tricky thing. In one of his post on assessment David gives steps in the process of mastering a skill. First can you duplicate the skill, repeat it in a similar circumstance? Second, can you apply the skill in a different situation that you haven't seen before? Then third, can you create something unique using the skill? I think I see my 3 Levels of Mastery rubric!