Department of Ed Awards $708 million in Contracts for Nation's Report Card Assessments

The National Center on Education Statistics, the primary federal agency in charge of collecting and analyzing data related to education, has just awarded several multi-million dollar contracts to five education and testing companies as part of a five-year contract to administer the next generation of assessments for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The NAEP assessments are given to a representative sample of fourth, eighth, and 12th grade students. For example, a 2011 writing assessment tested 24,100 eighth graders from 950 schools and 28,100 12th graders from 1,220 schools. The goal of the NAEP is to provide a "common yardstick" to assess the educational progress across state and district lines of students in math, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and United States history to track progress over time. For 2014, the NAEP will also add technology and engineering literacy to its areas of testing.

The contracts are going to:

  • Educational Testing Services (ETS), which will handle planning and coordinating ($26 million), design, analysis, and reporting ($91 million), and item development ($52 million);
  • Westat, which will do sampling and data collection ($321 million) and handle support and service ($36 million);
  • NCS Pearson, which will create materials and do distribution, processing, and scoring ($122 million);
  • Fulcrum IT Services, which will handle Web and technology development and operations and maintenance ($52 million); and
  • Business Intelligence, which will perform scheduling ($8 million).

The next five years will be a transformational period for the assessment program, according to Jay Campbell, executive director of the NAEP program at ETS. "We will need to quickly, efficiently, and effectively move most of NAEP assessments to computer and/or device delivery. But this transformation is not just about moving from paper to computer. The Department of Education expects, and we are ready to deliver, new and innovative assessment content that leverages technology to enhance what can be measured and reported about students' educational progress."

Campbell added that the new assessments will "leverage advances in cognitive science, computer technologies, and the science of measurement."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • robot typing on a computer

    Microsoft Unveils 'Computer Use' Automation in Copilot Studio

    Microsoft has announced a new AI-powered feature called "computer use" for its Copilot Studio platform that allows agents to directly interact with Web sites and desktop applications using simulated mouse clicks, menu selections and text inputs.

  • AI microchip under cybersecurity attack, surrounded by symbols of threats like a skull, spider, lock, and warning shield

    Report Finds Agentic AI Protocol Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

    A new report from Backslash Security has identified significant security vulnerabilities in the Model Context Protocol (MCP), technology introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to facilitate communication between AI agents and external tools.

  • educators seated at a table with a laptop and tablet, against a backdrop of muted geometric shapes

    HMH Forms Educator Council to Inform AI Tool Development

    Adaptive learning company HMH has established an AI Educator Council that brings together teachers, instructional coaches and leaders from school district across the country to help shape its AI solutions.

  • illustration of a human head with a glowing neural network in the brain, connected to tech icons on a cool blue-gray background

    Meta Introduces Stand-Alone AI App

    Meta Platforms has launched a stand-alone artificial intelligence app built on its proprietary Llama 4 model, intensifying the competitive race in generative AI alongside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.