Race to the Top Assessment Competition

1. Race to the TopAssessment Competition Public & Expert Input Meetings Technology & Innovation Boston, MA November 13, 2009

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 • Applicants: Consortia of States; 50% of the funding must be passed through to participating LEAs • Timeline: • March 2010 Release notice inviting applications • June 2010 Applications due • September 2010 Grants awarded

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

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

5. Goals for the Input Meetings • Paint a vision of the 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.

6. Agenda – Technology & Innovation 9:00-9:10 Welcome/Setting the Stage 9:10-9:50 Question 1: Expert Presentations 9:50-10:20 Round Table Discussion 10:20-11:00 Questions 2-4: Expert Presentations 11:00-11:20 Round Table Discussion 11:20-11:30 Break (public speakers queue up) 11:30-12:30 Public Speakers

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 • Additional written input may be submitted to racetothetop.assessmentinput@ed.gov

8. States Attending Today • Arizona • Arkansas • Connecticut • Florida • Illinois • Louisiana • Maine • Massachusetts • New Hampshire • New York • Ohio • Pennsylvania • Rhode Island • South Carolina • Utah • West Virginia • Wisconsin

9. On the Panel Invited Experts • Tony Alpert, Director of Assessment and AccountabilityOregon Department of Education • Eva Baker, Distinguished Professor and DirectorUCLA Graduate School of Education; National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) • Randy Bennett, Distinguished ScientistEducational Testing Service, Research & Development Division • Edys Quellmalz, Director of Technology Enhanced Assessments and Learning Systems, WestEd From the U.S. Department 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

10. Question 1 • Propose how you would recommend that different innovative technologies be deployed to create better assessments, and why. Please include illustrative examples in areas such as novel item types, constructed response scoring solutions, uses of mobile computing devices, and so on.