LAUSD Invests $24 Million in Assessment Platform
Los Angeles Unified School District is investing heavily in a digital assessment system designed to help boost student achievement through teacher-generated formative tests.
The district signed a five-year, $24 Million contract with Core K12 Education to use its Assessment Center platform and to receive certain other services, such as onsite professional development, progress monitoring, and content customization.
Assessment Center is an electronic platform providing tools and resources for creating assessments, collecting data, and reporting on data based on a range of criteria. It contains a bank of more than 200,000 elements to help educators create tests for delivery online or on paper, and it provides methods for selecting elements based on alignment to state standards, Lexile, p-Values, and other parameters. It also offers more than 12,000 "supplemental skill resources," which include standards-aligned lesson plans, activities, and worksheets.
This isn't the first time LAUSD has worked with Core K12. According to the company, it's been involved with the district in the past on a "dynamic, periodic assessment program," said Core K12 President Kevin Howell. "We believe that assessment drives discovery, and are very excited about continuing the good work we have started with this important client and education partner."
According to information released by the company Thursday, Core K12 works with about 2.5 million students served by districts or state agencies in California, Florida, and Texas.
LAUSD itself serves about 680,000 K-12 students, 1.07 million total students (including adult education students). It operates 1,044 K-12 campuses and 208 adult, early education, and other centers.