Current research upholds the significance of formative assessments in the classroom. Formative assessments are relevant to theory and practice; they offer positive possibilities with respect to both policy and pedagogy. At the policy level, formative assessments offer a means to minimize the negative effects of highstakes testing. The culture of high-stakes testing, epitomized by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, threatens to deprofessionalize teachers and alienate students. High-stakes tests can cause feelings of powerlessness in teachers and hopelessness in students. In this article, the author discusses two recently published texts which assert that formative assessments provide a way for teachers to use testing data without allowing standardized assessments to dominate curriculum and pedagogy.