1. Race to the Top Assessment Competition Public & Expert Input Meetings Project & Consortium Management Washington, DC January 13, 2010

2. 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 1/13/2010

3. 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 1/13/2010

4. 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 1/13/2010

5. 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. 1/13/2010

6. Agenda 10:00-10:15Welcome/Setting the Stage 10:15-12:00Expert Presentations 12:00-1:00Lunch (on your own) 1:00-2:10Expert Presentations 2:10-3:30Round Table Discussion 3:30-3:45Break (public speakers queue up) 3:45-4:45Public Speakers 4:45-5:00Conclusion 1/13/2010

7. Housekeeping Submitting your questions Time keeping Cell phones on vibrate please Today’s session will be transcribed and posted to www.ed.gov, together with the presentations www.ed.gov Additional written input may be submitted racetothetop.assessmentinput@ed.gov (deadline is 5pm Eastern time on January 20 th ) racetothetop.assessmentinput@ed.gov 1/13/2010

8. States Attending Today Arizona Arkansas Connecticut Florida Georgia Hawaii Illinois Kentucky Maryland 1/13/2010 Massachusetts Minnesota New York Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Vermont Wyoming States in italics are participating by phone and/or WebEx.

9. On the Panel Invited Experts Byron Auguste, Partner, McKinsey & Company Timothy Boals, Executive Director, World-Class Instructional Design & Assessment (WIDA) Tammy Butler Battaglino, Partner, The Parthenon Group Mike Cohen, President, Achieve Marc Tucker, President & CEO, National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) From the U.S. Department of Education Tony Miller, Deputy Secretary of Education 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 1/13/2010

10. Key Project & Consortium Management Questions How would you recommend organizing a consortium to achieve success in developing and implementing the proposed assessment system? What governance model do you suggest and why? What leadership model do you suggest and why? What recommendations do you have on the decision-making process within a consortium? What recommendations do you have for States that are organizing consortia regarding: how to differentiate roles, responsibilities, and workloads within a consortium? roles for third parties (e.g., conveners, project managers, assessment developers/partners, intermediaries)? What advice do you have on the characteristics that all consortium members must have in common in order for a consortium to be successful, and what characteristics can vary across member States, e.g., philosophical approaches to assessment, standards, scope and sequence, etc.? 10 1/13/2010

11. Key Project & Consortium Management Questions, con’t. What would you recommend that a consortium be asked to demonstrate in its application to show that it has the capacity, structure, and potential to implement its proposed plan? What are the critical success indicators six, 12 and 18 months into the life of a consortium? What signals are predictive of ultimate success or failure? What could go wrong in the development and management of a consortium and what can States do to mitigate these factors up front? In what ways could the Department structure the competition to help mitigate these factors? 11 1/13/2010

12. Additional Information For more information on the Race to the Top Assessment Program, please visit: http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop- assessment/index.html 1/13/2010