Thank you for this response. I will take away that not ALL formative assessments need to be common, those things we do everyday in our classroom to check for understanding don't have to be common. Makes sense, I may have been over-thinking and thinking too drastic.

Ok, after much thought, here are my thoughts on this... 1. I like the idea of formative assessments not having to be common, however, help me understand how we can work as a PLC to gather "matching " data to see the big picture, to make sure all students learning at high levels. Our PLC is made up of 7 K teachers (8 as for today) along with 3 specialist teachers. We look at data together to make sure our specialist teachers, especially, are getting to our neediest students. If the data isn't common then how can we measure who needs the most help? 2. You and I have talked about this a few times, and again I stated above our PLC includes 10 people. We are all in different places in our PLC journey. If we were able to split into 2 groups how could/would this be done to make sure we continue to move forward as a grade level and individually? 3. We came up with our essencial concepts in reading, math, and writing last week as a grade level. Next, we are suppose to move to creating common formative assessments, if we didn't do this, what could we do instead to continue our discussion/learning? 4. Our summative assessments are handed down to us from Administration, some... ok most.... don't relate to our enacted curriculum nor our essencial concepts but we have to do them because they are board approved and it is what we record on report cards along with cum files. If we didn't create common formative assessments, what could we do to ensure our students were learning our essencial concepts? Thank you for challenging my thinking and helping me continue in my PLC journey! PS I mentioned you in my Twitter PD session last week. I had told you prior to your session a year ago in MN that I didn't want you to think I was texting, but that I was Tweeting and you said "You are in charge of your own learning". That has stuck with me ever sense, in every meeting I have been in!