Assessment

Arkansas Department of Education Approves K–2 Math, ELA Assessment

• By Sri Ravipati
• 07/27/17

The Arkansas Department of Education recently approved a K–2 math and English language arts (ELA) assessment through 2024.

After a rigorous approval process, the state signed an agreement with Renaissance, a pre-K–12 learning analytics company, to use its Renaissance Star 360 assessment suite. Star 360 offers timely and actionable data and reports that can help instruction. Teachers will be able to view at-a-glance data dashboards that track students’ progress at the beginning of the school year, midyear, end-of-year and year-to-year.

The suite includes Renaissance Star Early Literacy, Renaissance Star Reading, Renaissance Star Math and Renaissance Star Custom — the latter of which comes with formative item banks for ELA, math and science. It’s powered by the Renaissance Growth Platform, which acts on a database of more than 2.7 billion practice and assessment data points.

“These insights make it possible for educators to make informed decisions, personalize learning, and lead every student to mastery of the Arkansas Academic Standards,” according to information from Renaissance.

To help prepare districts for the assessment, the Arkansas Department of Education held the K–2 Assessment Vendor Fair on July 17-20. Districts had the chance to attend presentations and ask vendors specific questions in-person.