Race to the Top Assessment Competition Public & Expert Input Meetings Procurement Washington, DC January 14, 2010

Race to the Top Assessment Competition Race to the Top State Competition: $4B competitive grant to encourage and reward States implementing comprehensive statewide reforms across four key areas Race to the Top Assessment Competition: $350M to support consortia of States implement common standards by funding the development of a new generation of common assessments aligned to them Timeline: March 2010Release notice inviting applications June 2010Applications due September 2010Grants awarded 1/14/2010

Goals of the Assessment Program Support States in delivering a system of more effective and instructionally useful assessments: More accurate information about what students know and can do: Achievement of standards Growth On-track to college and career ready by the time of high school graduation Reflects and supports good instructional practice Includes all students, including English language learners and students with disabilities Usable to inform: Teaching, learning, and program improvement Determinations of school effectiveness Determinations of principal and teacher effectiveness for the purposes of evaluation and support Determinations of individual student college and career readiness 1/14/2010

Other Requirements Subjects and Grades – at a minimum: Reading/language arts and mathematics Grades 3-8 and high school Summative assessments – at a minimum – but: Not necessarily end-of-year Not necessarily once during the year Not necessarily one test May replace rather than add to assessments currently in use Be valid, reliable, and fair 1/14/2010

Goals for the Input Meetings Paint a vision of what the next generation of assessment systems could and should look like. Provide concrete expert and public guidance to ED staff, in response to questions asked in the notice. Help prepare States to develop the highest quality proposals with the greatest likelihood of impact. 1/14/2010

Agenda – Procurement Discussion 9:00-9:15 am Welcome/Setting the Stage 9:15-10:35Expert Presentations 10:35-10:40Break 10:40-11:50 Round Table Discussion 11:50-12:00 pm Break (public speakers queue up) 12:00-12:30Public Speakers 12:30Adjourn 6 1/14/2010

Housekeeping Submitting your questions Time keeping Cell phones on vibrate please Today’s session will be transcribed and posted to together with the presentations Additional written input may be submitted (deadline is 5pm Eastern time on January 20 th ) 1/14/2010

States Attending Today Arkansas Florida Georgia Illinois Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts New York Tennessee Wyoming 1/14/2010

On the Panel Invited Experts Larry Berger, CEO & Co-Founder, Wireless Generation Allan Burman, President, Jefferson Solutions Mark Colley, Partner, Arnold & Porter, LLC Doug Richins, Former Director, State of Utah Division of Purchasing & General Services From the U.S. Department of Education Phil Maestri, Director of Risk Management Services, Office of the Secretary Joanne Weiss, Director of Race to the Top, Office of the Secretary Ann Whalen, Special Assistant to the Secretary Judy Wurtzel, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development 1/14/2010

Key Procurement Questions 1. How do differences in State procurement rules affect how you would design and manage a consortium? How will State procurement regulations, processes and time frames likely affect how a consortium carries out the development, piloting, and implementation of common assessments? (You may use examples from outside the education sector, if relevant.) 2. States have expressed interest in acquiring information about, and input and ideas from, potential assessment partners/vendors in advance of completing their applications. What actions, if any, would you advise the Department to take to help facilitate this? 10 1/14/2010

Key Procurement Questions, con’t. 3. States expressed a desire to run competitive (as opposed to sole-sourced) processes for selecting partners/vendors. How would you advise the Department to structure the application to enable States to do so? What other ideas would you offer in designing a process that is flexible enough to accommodate other challenges that States might encounter over time (e.g., challenges related to partner/vendor selection or contract change management)? 11 1/14/2010

Additional Information For more information on the Race to the Top Assessment Program, please visit: assessment/index.html 1/14/2010