Abstract

Educational assessments have had a strong development in Latin America in recent years. Almost all countries in the region regularly assess their students' achievement. Several also do so for selection purposes-for example, access to higher education. It is also increasingly common the development of assessments that address teacher performance. Moreover, international assessments have shown great impact, which has led to a sustained increase in the number of countries in the region that participate in and use PISA, TIMMS and ERCE results. The results of these assessments, in addition to the direct use assigned to them according to the declared purposes (training, diagnosis, selection, certification and promotion), conform a fundamental antecedent for judging the state of progress of education systems, as well as for making comparisons between groups (for example, men versus women, and socioeconomic and regional groups), and for estimating trends in educational achievement over time. As a result, assessments have become central tools for educational policy, and strongly influence opinions that the elite and citizens have about the educational system.