The paper highlights the development of a collaborative formative assessment scoring process in a partnership between an urban university and one of the nation's largest districts. We explore collaborative research through the lens of a single formative assessment rubric derived from the Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning Framework (CER, McNeill & Krajcik, 2011) to guide teachers to meet the instructional demands of enhanced learning standards through a consensus scoring process. Results suggest that the formative assessment practices (i.e., using a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-informed science rubric to focus collaboration) reinforced teacher and student learning meaningfully, supporting the enhanced instructional demands of the NGSS and providing school and university partners with useful data for their distinct purposes.