The District School Board of Pasco County (DSBPC) Florida has awarded its formative and Web-based assessment contract to Core K12.
CORE K12 will provide DSBPC with a formative and Web-based assessment platform and custom assessments for the 2010-2011 academic year. The education company will also deliver a combination of remote and on-site support and professional development to ensure successful implementation.
Under terms of the agreement, DSBPC districts and schools will receive licenses to CORE K12’s online Assessment Center® V3. This Web-based platform allows for the hybrid administration of formative assessments in a variety of test models, including online, responder/clicker, and/or paper/pencil/scan. Online test creation will be available to teachers and administrators using CORE K12’s bank of more than 200,000 unique math, science, and reading items. In addition, DSBPC educators will have access to the district’s bank of self-authored items through the Assessment Center programs. Reports resulting from the student assessments will inform students, parents, teachers and administrators on each student’s progress toward Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (“NGSSS”).
“Our goal is to develop, design and deliver tests that are truly meaningful to our teachers and students at an affordable cost,” explains Peggy Jones, DSBPC Director of Research and Evaluation. “Our experience and research has shown that the CORE K12 Assessment Center program contains high quality items which are well matched to NGSSS benchmarks. We believe this combination of outstanding items and customized assessments will help us deliver positive results across our district schools.”
In addition to Assessment Center, CORE K12 has licensed 51 custom benchmark assessments in science for grades 2-8 and 11, and for math in grades 2-10, as a component of the agreement. These custom assessments are comprised of three parallel benchmark assessments (tests with the same blueprint), which will be administered at each grade level during three testing windows in the 2010-2011 school year. The benchmark assessments were blueprinted in partnership with the district, so that each test addresses the most critical NGSSS benchmarks with 3 to 4 items per benchmark. Cognitive complexity/depth of knowledge ratings for items has been specified with the goal that assessment results will inform instruction and assist the district and school to measure individual student growth throughout the year. The ultimate goal is to provide actionable data that allows teacher and student to focus student learning, thereby maximizing opportunities for improvement.
Kevin Howell, president of CORE K12 adds, “Pasco County School District is dedicated to improving the lives of the students in their district by integrating state-of-the-art technology applications with their high teaching standards.”
