Large-scale assessments give districts a big-picture view of student progress, offering convenient data points to compare performance, identify trends and demonstrate accountability. Over and over, research shows that high-stakes testing demoralizes students and teachers and narrows learning down to math and reading scores. However, many struggle to put operations in place that turn aspirations from a poster on the wall into a fully functional system that monitors student progress and success. For districts leading the work, technology that supports tracking and reporting on student skills is critical. But too often, these moments of learning are invisible to accountability systems that prioritize hard numbers over growth.