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  For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Raven Hill | (410) 767-0486 | raven.hill@maryland.gov
MSDE Selects New Statewide Assessment Vendor
New standardized tests will begin in the 2026-27 school year.
BALTIMORE (January 29, 2026) — Today, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) announced the selection of NCS Pearson as the vendor to update the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP).
The state previously announced plans for the transition to a new assessment system in the 2026-2027 school year due to expiring vendor contracts.
The vendor selection follows the work of the MSDE Accountability and Assessment Task Force, which focused on rewarding schools for student academic growth, increasing fairness for schools serving under-resourced communities, and streamlining to make schools’ accountability system composite scores more easily understood by educators and the public. Created in February 2024, the task force gathered nearly 30 educators and experts to examine the MCAP and School Report Card systems, delivering its final report to the State Board of Education in December 2024.
“We are strengthening the value of the assessment program for Maryland students,” said Dr. Carey M. Wright, State Superintendent of Schools. “This opportunity to thoughtfully redesign our assessment program with community input allows Maryland to better measure student performance and academic growth.”
MSDE partnered with national experts from the Center for Assessment to revive the Maryland Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). Most states establish a TAC to develop requirements for the English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies tests.
The new assessment program is also designed to improve access for students with disabilities and multilingual learners, and to help educators use data to inform instruction. In addition, MSDE can consolidate multiple assessment vendors into a single, integrated platform, while creating operational and fiscal efficiencies for the state and local school systems.
Educators will be involved throughout the assessment development and standard-setting process to ensure that the system reflects Maryland teaching and learning expectations.
State ELA and mathematics assessments will continue to be administered annually in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Federal accountability requirements include a statewide science assessment for grades 5 and 8, and once in high school. The social studies assessment is administered in grade 8 and once in high school.
The state’s existing assessment vendor contracts will expire in late 2026.
New Assessment Program Goals
MSDE is seeking to move to a new state assessment program to accomplish the following goals:
- Improve technical quality and validity by adopting assessments that meet current psychometric standards, including the transition to multi-stage adaptive testing to better measure student performance across the full range of achievement.
- Increase equity and accessibility through enhanced accommodation delivery, ensuring more consistent, timely, and appropriate access for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.
- Enhance instructional usefulness by incorporating an optional interim assessment program that provides educators with actionable data to inform instruction throughout the school year.
- Expand and strengthen assessment content by augmenting the existing MSDE item bank to ensure an adequate number of questions at all difficulty levels, allowing for greater flexibility and an increased number of released items.
- Improve efficiency and coherence by consolidating multiple vendors into an integrated assessment platform, reducing complexity and improving system alignment.
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