Council of Chief State School Officers
For A Business Plan For The Management And Financing Of The Two State Assessment Consortia
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Amount$479,462
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Program
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Date Awarded11/12/2012
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Term15 Months
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Type of SupportProject
Strategies
Overview
With adoption of the next generation of Common Core assessments by forty-five states and the District of Columbia, there is an urgent need to ensure the standards’ ongoing governance, administration, and assessment after federal research and development funding ends in 2014. The two state-led consortia— the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers—will develop a business plan to create one or more organizations to ensure that the tests are updated and improved in a cost-effective, high-quality way over time. With support from the Hewlett, Gates, and Lumina foundations, the Council of Chief State School Officers would hire a consulting firm to develop a consensus among Common Core constituencies and the consortia’s member states about a sustainable agenda for governance, financing, services, and research and development.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.ccsso.org
Address
One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC, 20001-1431, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for support to states in adopting and implementing the Common Core assessments
This national association of state education commissioners has been helping a small number of states transition to new assessments aligned with the Common Core. This grant would finance planning for a larger project to help states make policy changes and address technical issues involved in using the new tests. The aim of this grant is to increase the likelihood that states will adopt the new assessments with fidelity to deeper learning.
for the SMARTER Balanced consortium's capacity and higher education and standards framing activities
Representing thirty-one member states, the Council's SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium is one of two federally funded consortia formed to develop a common K-12 student assessment system. The Consortium will coordinate with the higher education community to foster consensus on reasonable, rigorous student performance standards. This grant also would support improvements in the Consortium's management, outreach, and engagement with constituents. Its success is expected to be the centerpiece of the Education Program's Deeper Learning agenda, assuring that the K-12 common assessment system will involve rigorous testing and innovation, align with the postsecondary sector, and be widely adopted by states.
