State Board of Education selects testing vendor To deliver 2014 winter assessments
OKLAHOMA CITY (Oct. 17, 2014) — The Oklahoma State Board of
Education today approved the state entering into a sole-source contract with
testing vendor Measured Progress to administer the winter assessments.
The
company will deliver end-of-instruction (EOI) exams and re-testing of the Oklahoma
Modified Alternate Assessment Program, or OMAAP, which is being phased out by the
state in order to meet federal requirements.
Measured
Progress and its online platform is familiar to Oklahoma schools. In November
2013, the SBE selected the New Hampshire-based company for English and
mathematics testing in grades 3 through 8. As a result, Measured Progress last
spring conducted a statewide online-readiness test and item tryouts, both of
which had very positive responses from many school districts.
Oklahoma’s
Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) examined Measured Progress’
technological capabilities before concluding that the vendor has the technical
and online capability to handle the project.
In
its review, OMES reported that it “believes that Measured Progress and eMetric
[Measured Progress’ subcontractor] have sufficient readiness, planning, and
quality assurance and system recovery procedures and processes in place to
support the capacity, technical performance, and system availability required
during this period for the approximate number of identified students in online
testing.
“Additionally,
certain technical aspects of the project, which include items such as
pre-population of student registrations, reporting of test results, and
compatibility communication, appear to be properly stipulated within the SOW
[Statement of Work].”
Under the plan approved by the Board,
two of the testing windows have been pushed back. The new schedules are:
·
Optional
retesting: Dec. 1-5
·
Winter testing:
Dec. 8, 2014 – Jan. 9, 2015, for online exams and Dec. 8-19 for paper testing
The trimester testing window remains
unchanged at Jan. 19 – Feb. 13, 2015, for online exams and Jan. 19 – Feb. 6,
2015 for paper testing.
OSDE negotiated the contract with
Measured Progress after the board on Sept. 25 delayed a proposed contract with
CTB/McGraw-Hill. That company eventually withdrew from the contract process.
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