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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