PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT Portfolio Assessment: Its Beginnings In Vermont and Kentucky

The use of portfolios to document ability and improve or enhance assessment may seem a startling new educational innovation, but this has always been its purpose in other fields. he use of portfolio assessment was once just another way of docu-~ menting and evaluating a student’s ability, especially in art. Portfolios, like other authentic assessment techniques, were used by teachers, but sparingly and only in subject areas where they gave superior insight. How then did they &dquo;suddenly&dquo; become an educational phenomenon? Well, it didn’t exactly happen suddenly. &dquo;Suddenly&dquo; more aptly describes the perception of portfolios as an assessment technique in subject areas that were traditionally evaluated by written tests. It would be a stretch for even the most ardent proponents of portfolio assessment to argue that Socrates was &dquo;into portfolios&dquo; way back in Ancient Greece. Actually, he was into authentic assessment-those oral examinations (Worthen, 1993, p. 445). It was the ongoing movement toward authentic assessment, advo