Newsela’s Balanced Assessment by Formative (BAF) accelerates student learning with one collaborative assessment platform—connecting classroom and district insights to drive smarter instruction and stronger alignment.
Included Features
The Balanced Assessment by Formative includes:
Formative School & District license (previously Formative Gold)
Administer classroom assessments, deliver data-informed instruction, and provide targeted feedback—all in one place to accelerate student growth.
Item Bank
Use the Item Bank to create high-quality, standards-aligned assessments with pre-made items for Math, ELA, Science, and Social Studies. Customize questions easily, then view detailed item-level performance on standards, questions, and item types.
Respondus LockDown Browser
Create a secure testing environment with three levels of security. Block application switching, printing, screen captures, and copying/pasting to ensure exam integrity.
Translations
Instantly translates activity text into 30+ languages, supporting multilingual students in real time.
Luna Next Steps
Supporting efficient, data-driven instruction at scale. After an assessment is submitted, Luna analyzes student performance against learning standards and instantly recommends Luna Next Steps for enrichment or additional targeted support. Teachers can chat with Luna to further customize Luna Next Steps.
Luna Configuration Studio
Luna Configuration Studio lets districts and schools create custom Luna configurations that shape how Luna behaves when generating, reviewing, or editing content. Think of configurations as purpose-built AI assistants, similar to Gemini Gems or custom GPTs, but designed specifically for Formative workflows, assessment creation, and instructional alignment.
Add-on Services
Additional services are available for Balanced Assessment by Formative customers. Check with your Formative Customer Success Manager to learn more about:
Consultative Implementation Services
Consultative Implementation Services (CIS) is a structured onboarding service that helps districts implement common district interm assessments by guiding them through strategic milestones, ensuring a smooth first assessment administration. A dedicated project manager will work closely with your district to:
Align Formative setup with your district assessment goals.
Ensure the application is configured for smooth implementation.
Support the creation and administration of common assessments.
Conduct a systems check to prevent technical issues.
Host a review meeting after the first administration to refine processes.
Custom Assessment Services
Custom Assessment Services (CAS) puts our content team at your service. They’ll develop custom assessments tailored to your school or district’s needs. Each assessment item is tagged to a core subject standard of your choosing, whether at the state, national, or framework level.Each assessment includes a set number of questions or tasks aligned with your standards, and the number of items per assessment is determined collaboratively with you based on the administrative time and learning objectives.
Ready to capture insights in every classroom to meet students' needs district wide? Click HERE to learn more!
How-To Guides
Item Bank
The Item Bank provides a robust collection of high-quality assessment items, tagged to standards and Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels, to help you quickly build rigorous formatives.
Access the Item Bank:
Open or create a Formative.
Click the blue + button.
Select "Library & Item Bank".
Click the Item Bank tab at the top of the screen.
Searching and Filtering:
Click the Filters button (top right).
Select filter options for Question Type, Content Type, Depth of Knowledge, Grade, Subjects, and Standards.
Items matching your selections will appear in the center panel.
Adding Items:
Bulk Add: Check the box next to multiple desired items. Click the blue "Add Items" button at the top of the screen.
Single Add: Click an item to expand the view, then click the blue "Add Item To Formative" at the bottom right.
AI Generation (If No Results): If your filter selections yield no results, click 'Generate with AI' to create aligned questions. Adjust parameters, enter a prompt, and define the number of questions before clicking 'Generate'.
Learn More: For full details on adding standards, viewing DOKs, and item locking, please refer to the article: [Full Item Bank Article Link]
Student Translations
This feature enables you to provide on-demand translation support for students during an assessment, promoting accessibility.
Set Global Accommodation:
(Admin/Teacher Role) Use the Student Management Page or Student Profile Page within the Classes tab. Navigate to Accommodations and select the student's preferred language from the dropdown next to 'Translations'. Click Update.
Enable Translator Tool:
(Teacher Role)
Click Assign on your Formative.
In the Assign Settings window, toggle Learning Tools to ON.
Toggle Student Translator to ON.
Complete other settings and click Assign.
Student Experience: When a student with the accommodation opens the Formative, they will see the Translator icon in the Global Learning Tools menu. They click the icon and select the prompt to translate the formative text into their language of accommodation.
Learn More: For full details on bulk accommodations, removing accommodations, and troubleshooting, please refer to the article.
Luna Configuration Studio
This feature allows your organization to tailor Luna's AI output using your own curriculum and guidelines, ensuring highly relevant content generation.
Admin Configuration:
(Admin Role) District administrators will be able to define specific instructions, files, and reference materials (Contexts) that Luna will use when generating content for teachers. This provides a customized, curriculum-aligned experience.
Teacher Usage:
(Teacher Role) When interacting with Luna to generate items or content, teachers will be able to select from a list of predefined Luna Custom Configurations (if set by the district) to ensure the generated output is tailored to their specific needs.
Luna Next Steps
This feature provides the crucial next step in the assessment cycle by creating personalized, data-driven assignments based on student mastery.
Identify Needs:
(Teacher Role) After students complete an assessment, head over to the insights summary and ask Luna to analyze the results based on the specific standards or questions where students demonstrated poor performance.
Generate Follow-Up: Interact with Luna to generate a standards-based formative assessment and/or a practice set, targeting those specific areas of need.
Customize & Assign: You can chat with Luna to further refine the generated follow-up assignment (e.g., adjust difficulty, change question types) before assigning it to the students who need that targeted practice or enrichment.